Like many flowering plants, there are two phases of life for marijuana. Note: The scientific name for the marijuana plant is “cannabis”.

First, a cannabis plant goes through a phase of vegetative growth, producing mainly stems and leaves.

Cannabis plants in the vegetative stage look like this. All leaves, no buds.

Second, the plant goes through a flowering phase of growth where it begins to produce the organs (flowers) needed for sexual reproduction. This is when your plant starts growing “buds”. These buds are what most growers want, but you have to make it through the vegetative stage first!

Did you know? “Buds” are the flowers of a female cannabis plant.

It’s a bit like how many animals are first non-sexual “youngsters” focused on growth, then become “adults” in order to sexually reproduce. In fact, before a cannabis plant “hits puberty,” you usually can’t tell by looking if the plant is going to be a male or a female!

For the vegetative stage, male and female plants look almost identical.

Today, I will cover everything you need to know about the first stage of cannabis growth, including:

• What Happens During the Vegetative Stage?
• How Long Does the Vegetative Stage Last?
• Tips and Hints: How to Avoid Common Vegetative Stage Problems

I shed light on everything you need to know about the marijuana flowering stage here.

What happens during the Vegetative Stage?

Many home growers start with seeds. After your cannabis seedling grows the first set of “real” cannabis leaves (the initial set of leaves are smooth, pictured below), the plant is pretty much officially in the vegetative stage of growth.

A seedling’s first leaves are smooth. After that, new leaves have serrated edges like “real” cannabis leaves.

Did you know? The smooth first set of leaves are called “cotyledon” leaves. These leaves were already fully formed within the shell. Germination just lets them free. That’s why they don’t look like the leaves a cannabis seedling grows later.

A happy, healthy cannabis seedling a day after germination.

Here are 10 day old cannabis seedlings.

Learn how to care for cannabis seedlings so they grow fast (mainly just water them on the right schedule).

If you started with clones as opposed to seeds, your plant is generally considered in the vegetative stage once you see new leaves start growing.

During the entire Vegetative Stage, your plant will grow big and tall, but won’t produce flowers or buds.

Plants keep growing more and more leaves in the vegetative stage.

Quick fact: Cannabis is considered an “annual” plant. In the wild, each new cannabis seedling goes through his or her entire life cycle and produces seeds over the course of one year. That means wild cannabis plants die naturally when winter comes, making room for the next year’s seedlings.

How long does the vegetative stage last?

As the gardener, you actually have a lot of control over how long the vegetative stage lasts. At least for standard photoperiod strains.

As the grower, you control how long the vegetative stage lasts (except auto-flowering strains). You can keep plants small or let them grow big.

This is because a photoperiod cannabis plant relies on environmental factors to know when to switch to flowering.

Environmental factors “tell” a cannabis plant to either stay in the vegetative stage or start flowering, and these factors are easy to control.

The main thing cannabis “pays attention to” is the length of light and continuous dark periods it receives each day. Long days keep plants in the vegetative stage, while long nights initiate cannabis plants to to start flowering.

Long days keep plants in the vegetative stage. Indoors, give plants 18+ hours of light per day.

This makes sense, if you consider that in the wild, a cannabis plant will need some way to know that winter is coming.

For photoperiod strains of cannabis, the plants “notice” the days are getting shorter. In response, they start flowering to make sure seeds get made before winter comes.

When growing cannabis outdoors, you have less control over the length of the vegetative stage since you can’t control the sun and how long it shines each day.

Most outdoor growers choose to plant their seeds or clones in the spring, allowing the plant to naturally go through its life cycle and start flowering as the days shorten and winter approaches.

One of the convenient aspects of growing cannabis indoors is that the light and dark periods experienced by your plants are easy to control. Indoors, you are the master of when lights go on and off.

As long as you ensure that your indoor plants get 18-24 hours of light each day, they stay in the vegetative phase of growth essentially forever. This gives you ultimate power over how long the vegetative stage lasts, and therefore how big your plants get before they start making buds.

Most indoor growers invest in an electrical timer to turn their lights on and off automatically.

Use an electrical timer to put grow lights on a 12/12 light schedule to trigger flowering.

In order to “tell” your plant to change over to the flowering stage, you change their light schedule to give them at least 12 hours of uninterrupted darkness each night. For your cannabis plant shorter days and longer nights is the signal to start flowering.

Long nights trigger flowering in photoperiod cannabis by “telling” the plant to start making buds.

Auto-flowering Strains Are Different

A notable exception to these principles are “auto-flowering” cannabis plants, derived from the non-psychoactive Ruderalis strain of cannabis, pictured here.

Auto-flowering strains are descended from non-psychoactive Ruderalis variety of cannabis, which automatically make buds.

Auto-flowering strains always start from seed. Here are some of my favorite auto-flowering strains. These special strains run on an internal clock that tells them when to start flowering. They don’t care about light period. For auto-flowering cannabis plants, you do not have any real control over how long the plant stays in the vegetative stage, it just naturally switches over to flowering after a certain amount of time.

If you didn’t particularly get an “auto” or “auto-flowering” seed from a seed bank, chances are your seeds are the ‘regular’ kind of cannabis that’s controlled by light periods, as discussed here. This light period sensitive strains are listed as “photoperiod” strains.

Therefore, the answer to how long should you keep your plants in the vegetative stage will vary with how big you want your final plants to be.

If you are trying to keep your plants smaller, you will keep them in the vegetative stage for a shorter amount of time. If you want a bigger final plant, you will need to invest more time letting the plant gain size in the vegetative stage before switching to flowering.

The time spent in the vegetative stage (which you control) determines the final height and size of the plant.

When growing cannabis indoors, a good rule of thumb is to change your plant over to the flowering stage once it reaches half the final height you desire. This is especially crucial when you’re a new grower or growing an unknown strain.

That bears repeating.

Change your vegetative plants to the flowering stage when they’ve reached half the final desired height.

As I mentioned before, you tell a cannabis plant to start flowering by changing your light schedule to give them 12 hours of darkness a day.

Depending on the strain and growing conditions, it’s not uncommon for cannabis plants to double in height after they’ve first switched over to the flowering stage.

Some growers turn their plants over to flowering when they’re barely more than a seedling, while others will wait until the plant is much larger.

It all depends on how big you want your final plant to be.

Learn about the various growth control methods you can use to control exactly how your plant grows during the vegetative stage, so you’re perfectly prepped to get huge yields from the flowering stage.

Next, what do growers need to look out for during the Vegetative stage?

Cannabis-Specific Tips and Hints: Vegetative Stage

How to Avoid Common Problems

The Vegetative Stage is the most forgiving stage in your cannabis plant’s life. Vegetative plants bounce back quickly from problems.

Your vegetating plants should be showing rapid healthy growth. If not, make sure you fix things now or your plants may become a disaster during the less-forgiving Flowering Stage.

Just the Right Amount of Light

If your cannabis plants seem green and relatively healthy, but just seem to be growing slowly, there’s a strong chance you need to increase the intensity of the light.

Another sign of light starvation is if you notice that your plants are growing taller at a much faster rate than they are growing branches and leaves. If you see your plant is ‘stretching’ upwards, the solution is to increase the light intensity.

Plants that get the right amount of light grow healthy and bushy. I love this Spider Farmer SF-2000 LED grow light (my review).

“Stretchy” tall plants usually need more light.

2 Ways to Increase Intensity of Light

• Move lights closer (watch plants closely at first).
• Upgrade to a stronger grow light.

Plants with stress only on the top leaves (light burn) often need less light.

3 Ways to Lower the Intensity of Light

• Move grow light further away
• Reduce light power (some grow lights let you dial down the intensity)
• Downsize to a smaller grow light

Small grow lights can produce a surprising amount of weed when used correctly.

Root Health Is Crucial For Healthy Growth

Root health is incredibly important if you want to get fast healthy growth. Your watering schedule is crucial and an incorrect watering schedule can kill your plants.

Drooping is the most common symptom of over-watering or under-watering. Learn how to water seedlings.

Over-watered cannabis plants droop and grow slowly.

When your once-healthy plants are drooping no matter what you do with your watering schedule, and you’re giving them enough light, it’s often a sign these plants have root problems. Root problems often come with a musty smell near the roots.

In addition to droopiness, root problems may also rear their ugly head with malformed, discolored or wrinkled leaves.

I’ve found that many “unexplainable” cannabis issues are often the result of overwatering or root problems. Overwatering can even cause nutrient deficiencies!

Root problems can cause unusual symptoms.

How to Water Cannabis Correctly

Cannabis loves well-draining soil or potting mix, hates mud. Seedlings only need a little water at a time.

For seedlings, give water in a small circle around the base of the plant.

Here’s a full tutorial on how to water cannabis seedlings perfectly every time.

But after your plants are bigger, here’s what to do:

• Every time you water your plants, keep adding more water until about 20% extra runoff water comes out the bottom.
• Don’t water plants again until the top inch (to the first knuckle of your index finger) of growing medium is dry.

Read the complete watering cannabis tutorial.

If you’re growing cannabis directly in water, other measures are needed to make sure your plant’s roots stay healthy. For example, the water must be oxygenated to give roots the oxygen they need, and you should use a proven root supplement like Hydroguard to prevent root rot.

Learn about growing cannabis directly in water.

Nutrients and pH of the Roots

With all nutrient systems that you’re trying out for the first time, I highly suggest starting at half the recommended nutrient levels when growing weed. That’s because many nutrient companies recommend too much nutrients for most cannabis plants.

If you’re not sure which nutrient system to get, Dyna-Gro Grow and Bloom gives you a simple cannabis-friendly nutrient system that works great for growing cannabis when used at half strength. Here’s how to use Dyna-Gro with cannabis plants.

Learn about great nutrients for cannabis plants.

No matter what nutrients you’re using, never increase the concentration of nutrient unless you see signs of nutrient deficiencies and have already ruled out pH problems.

(Wait… what about pH? Learn what you need to know about pH here.)

With nutrients, I’ve found over and over that I get the best cannabis yields when I lean towards the side of “too little” instead of “too much” nutrients. Often, what appears to be nutrient deficiencies end up being pH problems.

This is why I always start nutrients at half strength when growing with new nutrient system, unless I’m given a custom cannabis schedule, and only move up when I see deficiencies and have ruled out pH as the culprit.

Often a “nutrient deficiency” is actually a pH problem. The yellowing and spots here are caused by incorrect pH, not too little nutrients.

Watch Your Humidity

Avoid letting the humidity get too high or low in the vegetative stage, especially when plants are young seedlings or clones. This helps your plant live a stress-free, healthy life.

Extra dry (especially when combined with hot) conditions can cause plants in the vegetative stage to seem extra finicky. When it’s too dry, your plants will generally have more problems and need more care. In fact, in dry areas, cannabis growers often think you they nutrient problems, yet just raising the humidity in the grow room to the 40-60% range clears the problems right up. You can increase humidity of your grow room with a humidifier.

On the other hand, cannabis plants don’t drink much water and tend to grow slowly when the humidity is above 60%. High humidity levels are extra bad for plants that are growing buds, as we discuss in our tutorial about bud rot. You can reduce the humidity of your cannabis grow space with a dehumidifier.

After you’ve mastered the basics of growing cannabis, this is something to consider. I’ve found that you can get cannabis plants to grow faster and healthier during the vegetative stage by maintaining around 50% humidity if possible.

Humidity in the 40-60% range makes vegetative cannabis plants happy.

Summary: The Cannabis Vegetative Stage

Here’s what you need to remember about the vegetative stage.

Vegetative Stage Basics

• The vegetative stage of life begins after a cannabis seedling develops its first set of true leaves.
• During the vegetative stage, cannabis plants only grow stems and leaves. They do not produce buds.

For Photoperiod Strains:

• The length of the vegetative stage is controlled by you, the grower.
• You keep photoperiod plants in the vegetative stage by giving 18-24 hours of light per day.
• Keep plants in the vegetative stage until they’re about 1/2 the final desired height, then initiate the flowering stage.
• Trigger the flowering stage by giving plants a 12/12 light schedule (12 hours of uninterrupted darkness each day).

Learn about cannabis photoperiod strains.

For Auto-flowering Strains:

• Auto-flowering strains switch to the flowering stage based on time, not light schedules.
• Most auto-flowering plants automatically start flowering when they’re 4-6 weeks old (depending on strain) from germination.

Learn about growing cannabis auto-flowering strains.

Common Vegetative Stage Issues and Tips:

• Light – Give the right amount of light to prevent slow growth or stretching.
• Watering – Avoid over-watering or under-watering for healthy roots.
• Nutrients – Use good cannabis nutrients. Start with half the recommended dose and watch how plants react.
• pH – Keep an eye on soil pH to prevent nutrient deficiencies.
• Humidity – Keep humidity levels between 40-60% for optimal vegetative growth.

Key Takeaways:

• Proper amounts of light, water, nutrients, and humidity in the vegetative stage sets the foundation for a successful flowering stage.
• Understand and control these factors to prevent common problems and promote healthy, happy cannabis plants.

About the Author: Nebula Haze

In response to the need for more tutorials aimed at new growers, Nebula co-founded GrowWeedEasy.com in 2008 with fellow grower Sirius Fourside.

Since then, Nebula has published hundreds of growing articles in print and online, teaches online cannabis cultivation courses, runs a weekly growing newsletter, and continues to dedicate herself to serving the needs of the cannabis growing community.

“My mission is to show other cannabis growers how easy and fun it can be to grow pounds of killer weed out of your closet.” ~Nebula

The post Growing Marijuana: The Vegetative Stage appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

1. Topping
2. Low Stress Training (LST)
3. Supercropping
4. Defoliation (Strategically Removing Leaves)
5. Lollipopping
6. Sea of Green (SoG)
7. Manifolding (aka Main-Lining)
8. Screen of Green (ScrOG)
9. FIMming
10. Monster Cropping

Bonus: Fluxing

Every Cannabis Grower Should Use Plant Training Techniques

As a cannabis grower, your goal is to get your plants to produce a lot of high-quality buds as efficiently as possible. A key tactic to increasing cannabis yields and bud quality is to “train” your cannabis plant when it’s young to grow wide and flat so that it produces a lot of fat top buds in the flowering stage.

The goal of all cannabis plant training techniques is to grow wide flat plants with many big top buds. Fill your grow space with top-shelf weed!

Cannabis Plant Training Benefits

• Bigger yields
• Denser buds
• Increased bud potency (higher THC)*

*In our side-by-side experiments, trained cannabis plants produce buds that have higher THC levels when tested at the lab.

Today’s cannabis plant training tutorial is all about showing you how to use free techniques to get more and better quality buds from your current setup.

Achieve better marijuana bud quality and increase THC levels with these free plant training techniques!

1.) Topping

Topping is the #1 most important, easiest, and most effective cannabis plant training technique. If you must choose only one technique, do this.

“Topping” means cutting off the growing tip (“top”) of the main stem to encourage the growth of two or more secondary stems. A grower typically “tops” the plant when it’s a few weeks old. The purpose of topping is to break the apical dominance of the cannabis plant (reduce the tendency to grow one main trunk) so it naturally grows with many branches. Topping a young cannabis plant helps encourage it to grow wide and bushy with many tops for buds to grow.

Topping means cutting off the top of a cannabis plant when it’s a few weeks old.

The result: plants naturally grow more bushy, even if you don’t do anything else.

Topped cannabis plants naturally grow wider and bushier.

The result is many tops on each marijuana plant, and each of those top stems becomes a main bud.

2.) Low Stress Training (LST)

Low Stress Training (often called “LST”) is a fancy way of saying “bending and tying down branches”. The goal of LST is to get the plant to grow in the shape you want, typically to create a more even and horizontal canopy so the plant produces many buds instead of just one. Training cannabis plants to grow flat and wide also helps deliver more light to more top buds, increasing overall yields and bud quality.

This is another technique, like topping, that can definitely be used by itself to increase yields without doing anything else.

Learn More: Low Stress Training Tutorial

Cannabis plant before low stress training.

A cannabis plant after low stress training. Branches were bent down and away from the middle of the plant, then secured with plant twisty tie.

At harvest, the cannabis plant has many big buds instead of only one. (Here’s the full grow journal)

3.) Supercropping

The main purpose of “supercropping” is to gain total control over the height of unruly cannabis plants by being able to bend even the stiffest of branches without breaking them. I’m not sure how it got its name (perhaps just because it helps make super harvests?) but the supercropping technique involves pinching and bending the stems until they break internally, but not externally. After the stem can be bent, the branches get secured where you want them to stay.

In addition to height control, supercropping causes the plant to form a knuckle at the bend point, which, as a bonus, may increase the flow of nutrients and hormones in some cases. This technique may also potentially increase the potency of buds by slightly stressing the cannabis plant in a “good” way. However, be careful to follow the tutorial to make sure you don’t accidentally break the skin and potentially kill the branch.

Learn More: How to Supercrop Plants to Control Height

Supercropping is a technique to safely bend branches at an extreme angle without “breaking the skin”. This gives you a lot more control over plant height.

4.) Defoliation (Strategically Removing Leaves)

“Defoliation” means removing fan leaves, and should be done in a strategic way to get the best results. The main goal is to remove big fan leaves that block light from reaching the bud sites early in the flowering stage. This helps the plants grow into a better structure, improves airflow, increases light penetration, and overall enhances bud development. However, this technique should be done with caution as over-defoliation can stress or stunt the plant, and works best if you follow our defoliation tutorial.

Learn more: Cannabis Flowering Stage Defoliation Tutorial

Defoliation means removing fan leaves in a strategic way during the early flowering stage. Strategic defoliation for cannabis plants is typically done on a specific schedule after flowering is initiated.

When done properly, strategic defoliation results in bigger, longer buds. In our cannabis defoliation experiment, defoliated plants also produced more THC!

5.) Lollipopping

The “lollipopping” technique involves removing the lower branches and leaves that receive little light and produce small buds. Essentially, you turn the plant into a lollipop with no leaves on the bottom. Removing the bottom leaves and bud sites that will never get light helps the plant focus its energy on the upper buds. As a result of lollipopping, the topmost buds typically grow bigger and denser.

Before and after lollipopping cannabis plants. The left plant was lollipopped, and the right plant has not been lolliopped yet.

This was done right as the grower initiated the flowering stage. Notice how all the leaves have been removed from the bottom of the plant and light now reaches the floor.

Lollipopped cannabis plants produce big buds that go deeper down into the plant. Notice how the bottom branches are bare.

Lollopopped plants tend to produce bigger and better top buds, with fewer small airy lower buds that typically are not that potent anyway.

Learn More: How to Lollipop Your Cannabis Plants

Useful Specialty Techniques

These techniques are useful in many situations, but unlike the tactics listed above (which are useful for every cannabis grower), these techniques may not be the best choice in every situation for every grower’s goals.

6.) Sea of Green (SoG)

“Sea of Green” (also known as “SoG”) is about creating a sea of buds with a bunch of little plants. Many small plants are grown together in close proximity, then forced to start flowering early. Since plants stay small, growing with the Sea of Green technique reduces the vegetative time, allowing for both quicker harvests and more harvests in a year. This technique works best for cannabis strains that have a dominant main cola, and for grow spaces where it is easy to reach all the plants including plants in the middle or back. Although Sea of Green is surprisingly efficient as far as the yields for the time and electricity used, it’s not suitable for growers with legal plant limits, and tends to take more work compared to growing fewer plants.

Learn More: How to Make a “Sea of Green” in Your Cannabis Garden

Grow many small cannabis plants for a “sea of green” and initiate the flowering stage when plants are still tiny (this size).

Each cannabis plant will grow one main bud and fill your space with weed.

7.) Manifolding (aka Main-Lining)

Originally called main-lining, this technique has come to be called “manifolding” because that is more descriptive, and also because “main-lining” has another meaning in the drug world. Manifolding involves topping the main stem multiple times when the plant is still small to create an even number of main colas that grow from a single manifold. This process creates a symmetrical and balanced plant where each main bud receives equal amounts of nutrients and light.

Note: Autoflowering strains cannot be manifolded because their vegetative stage is too short. Learn more about how to train auto-flowering cannabis strains.

The manifolding process is a neat way to learn about training cannabis plants and also ensures an excellent harvest of many big buds. In my opinion, every dedicated cannabis grower should try manifolding a photoperiod plant at least once, even if just for the experience. It’s not necessarily the most scalable or efficient plant training technique, but is definitely one of the most fun!

Manifolding is a training regimen that causes the entire plant to grow from one main “manifold”. Manifolds are fun and interesting to make!

Example of a manifolded cannabis plant at harvest.

8.) Screen of Green (ScrOG)

“Screen of Green” (often abbreviated “ScrOG” – no relation to Sea of Green technique despite the similar names) refers to using a screen or net to support and train the branches to grow flat and wide. The branches are woven through the screen as they grow, creating a flat and uniform canopy that maximizes light exposure and bud production. Creating a screen of green can be useful in some situations, but personally, I believe it’s often less work to use other techniques on this page to create wide flat plant canopies. Once a cannabis plant is woven through the screen, it’s stuck in place unless the screen also moves, which can be inconvenient. Also, if you use wire as part of the screen, it can be difficult to cut all the buds out at harvest.

Learn more: Screen of Green Tutorial

Create a screen (best to use string instead of wire to make it easy to cut away from plants at harvest).

Example of a cannabis plant growing in a screen.

(Less Useful) “Hit or Miss” Techniques

These cannabis training techniques are not consistent and should generally be avoided, or at least considered experimental.

9.) FIMming

“FIM” stands for “F*ck I Missed” 😂 Essentially, this technique is similar to topping, but instead of cutting through the main stem, a small portion of the top of the plant is left behind. FIMing was “discovered” when someone messed up while topping their plant. When done in just the right way, this can result in four or more secondary stems growing from the same node. The downside is it often doesn’t work as intended. While topping consistently splits one stem into two, FIMing can result in 1, 2, 3, or 4 final stems. If you want 4 main stems, it’s better to top the plant twice than FIM it.

FIMing means removing 80% of the top node and hoping it results in 4 main branches (inconsistent and not recommended).

10.) Monster Cropping

The “monster cropping” technique involves taking clones from a flowering plant and reverting them back to the vegetative stage (“re-vegging” the cannabis plant). A re-vegged clone often grows strangely, with multiple branches and bud sites, creating bushy and monster-like plants. Some growers think this can be an easy way to make the plant grow many buds, but in my experience, re-vegged plants grow slowly for a long time compared to seeds or regular clones. Almost any other technique on this page to make plants bushy gets faster and more consistent results.

Learn More: What is “Monster Cropping” a Cannabis Plant?

A “monster cropped” plant. Note: a cannabis grower will likely get better results with almost any other technique on this page.

Bonus: Fluxing

Similar to manifolding except more complicated and with more steps. This gets similar results as manifolding but takes more time so it’s best for growers who enjoy the process of training and experimenting with vegetative cannabis plants. Typically, you’ll get the same results for less effort by manifolding a cannabis plant instead.

Fluxing is essentially a more complex version of manifolding.

Fluxing gives similar results to other techniques on this page that take less time.

Learn More: What is “Fluxing” and How Do You Do It?

Start training your cannabis plants today using the techniques in today’s tutorial!

Grow many buds at the same time…

…and enjoy your bountiful harvest!

The post 10 Most Common Cannabis Training Terms: In Order of Usefulness appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

Busy lately? Or just a little lazy? Me too. But I still want to grow a ton of weed. Over the years I’ve learned some tricks and time-savers so you only need to spend a few minutes a day tending your cannabis plants and still produce the best quality weed. Today I will teach you 9 ways you can reduce the amount of time and effort it takes to grow cannabis without reducing yields or quality.

Grow a ton of potent sticky weed in less than 10 minutes a day if you follow this tutorial. Perfect for busy people!

Keep in mind these main tactics to reduce time and effort to grow weed:

• Pick a low-maintenance grow style
• Set up properly – Certain equipment cuts down time and effort
• Fewer grows per year – Maximize yields and only grow good weed

Without further ado…

9 Ways to Reduce Effort and Time Growing Weed

1.) Skip mixing nutrients with a “just add water” grow medium

Skip mixing nutrients with this grow medium. Just add clean water to this organic slow-release soil. Another bonus is you don’t get runoff water with this setup, so you save the time it would normally take to remove runoff water that comes out the bottom of a pot. This grow medium produces excellent buds and good yields, but plants tend to grow a bit slower and yields are a little smaller than when growing with nutrients.

Check it out: “Just Add Water” Cannabis Tutorial

Create a “Just Add Water” grow medium by incorporating compost in the soil like Nature’s Living Soil concentrate. Check out my full “Just add water” tutorial that I used to grow these plants.

2.) One-part nutrient systems

For those who want the fast cannabis growth and enormous yields that come from using good nutrients. Some nutrient systems require multiple bottles to give the exact right ratios, like the General Hydroponics Flora trio. It takes less time to mix up a one-part nutrient system because you only use one bottle at a time. I have personally had excellent results growing cannabis with Dyna-Gro Foliage Pro and Bloom. I’d say Dyna-Gro plant growth rates and yields are 95% as good as the Flora trio (my personal favorite nutrients for weed) with the same excellent bud quality. A good choice for soil, coco, or hydro.

Dyna-Gro is super simple and works in soil, coco, or hydro. Use Foliage Pro at 1 tsp/gallon for the vegetative stage.

Use Bloom at 1 tsp/gallon after buds start forming

3.) Fast hardy strain with high yields

Save time by not dealing with sensitive plants. And if your non-sensitive plants also have high yields, you can grow fewer times a year. Where can you buy hardy, high yielding cannabis strains? Generally, by Royal Queen Seeds, Dutch Passion, Barney’s Farm, Bomb Seeds, and Fastbuds are a solid choice. I’ve also included several specific strain suggestions at bottom of article.

Grow fast hardy strains with big yields (recommended strains at bottom of article)

4.) Get a good grow light

It is a huge waste of your time to produce small yields or weak weed because of an insufficient grow light. Stick to proven cannabis LEDs (best choice for most cannabis growers) or HIDs like MH/HPS (best for cool grow spaces like in a cellar or during the winter), and LEC/CMH grow lights (best for high trichome and terpene production). Avoid fluorescent grow lights and generic LEDs. Fluorescent lights (like CFLs or T5s) tend to get low yields/watt, produce a surprising amount of heat, and require constant adjustment to maintain the right light distance from plants. Unsuitable LED grow lights tend to cause nutrient deficiencies for no reason, slow down growth, and produce poor yields with low-potency buds.

Check out 7 recommended grow lights we’ve had great results with (including harvest pictures!).

Spider Farmer SF-2000 may be the easiest grow light I’ve used, and it’s pretty cheap at $250. Check out my full Spider Farmer SF-2000 review.

5.) Time-saving plant pruning technique

There are many ways to prune or “train” your plants to produce bigger yields and better buds for free. However, many are time-consuming, such as the manifold technique.

Here is the quickest and easiest plant training method that will give you a ton of bud sites and flat table-like plant canopies that make the best use of your grow lights.

1. Wait until plant has grown 6 sets of leaves (or 6 “nodes” as cannabis growers often say)
2. Cut off the top of the plant just above the 5th set of leaves (“top the plant above the 5th node” in weed growing lingo)
3. Spread branches out as the plant grows to make a flat “tabletop” canopy that fills the space under the grow light
   1. Any time there’s a branch that’s taller than the others, bend it down and away from the center of the plant.
   2. Tie branches down with plant twistie tie so they don’t turn back up
   3. Use the supercrop technique to bend thick branches without snapping them.
4. Once plants have reached half the final desired height and the branches fill the entire grow space, initiate a 12/12 light schedule to get plants to start making buds.
5. Buds will naturally form as shown below.

Read the full tutorial on how to use this technique.

This simple training technique produces plants like this

This shape forces plants to produce many big buds at harvest

6.) Remove extra leaves in the flowering stage

Strategic defoliation in the flowering stage increase yields, maximizes THC (yes, proper defoliation can make buds more potent), and makes it easier to trim buds after harvest and drying. It’s worth doing because you will end up with more and better buds, but also removing leaves in the flowering stage can save you hours of trimming time after harvest. Be aware of your plant’s leafiness level, and try to make sure light can get through your plant for the best results. Make sure to get good scissors with a thin blade like Fiskars for both pruning and trimming after harvest.

Plucking leaves strategically now will increase yields, bud quality, and save you a ton of time later during trim time.

The above picture shows a pretty big defoliation session (which I like to do first when buds start forming, and then again 3 weeks later). Try not to pluck your plants more bare than this. This took about a half hour, but if you remove just a few leaves at a time when you check on your plants, it won’t ever take much time. Any leaves with trichomes on them can also be used to make edibles or hash.

Remove leaves whenever your plant gets so bushy light can’t get through the plant (left plants are too leafy, right plants are the perfect leafiness to maintain). Learn when NOT to defoliate.

Read my 3-step super simple flowering defoliation tutorial.

7.) Make a workspace

Have a dedicated table to mix nutrients, hold plants, etc. Don’t work directly on the floor. Make sure your nutrient bottles, tools, etc. are all within easy reach of your workspace so you’re not moving all around the grow room to do regular things.

Have a place to mix your nutrients and hold grow equipment so you’re not working on the floor

8.) Easy water access

Get the right size water container, it makes all the difference. A 1-gallon water container often is too small to water many plants at once, so you end up mixing nutrients all the time. A 5-gallon container holds a lot of water but is really heavy when full. I’m not strong enough to easily carry it aroud. But a 3-gallon water container is a lot more manageable and still holds a lot at once (MUCH cheaper to buy water containers in person like at Wal-mart or a water store).

A water transfer pump can make it easier to water your plants. Some growers set up an automated watering system. If it’s a pain to carry water around, get a faucet adapter so you can attach a hose to your sink and use a hose to fill your water container next to your plants.

Ready the easy watering tutorial

Make it easy to water your plants (especially any in the back) by using a small water transfer pump or watering can

A faucet adapter makes it easy to get water from your sink directly to your grow room with a hose

9.) Plan BEFORE you start growing

Choose a proven cannabis setup based on your desired yields and budget instead of piecing everything together one thing at a time. This helps ensure everything works together without any surprises. Make sure to get rope ratchets to hang your lights while still being able to easily move your light up and down (rope ratchets often come with your grow light, otherwise get them separately). Rope ratchets can also be used to hang a heavy carbon filter. Just attach them to your carbon filter or grow light, attach the other end to the bar, and use the ratchets to ratchet equipment up or down. Use plant yo-yos (which are specifically designed for cannabis) to hold up any branches or heavy buds that start falling over.

Learn about proven grow setups and helpful cannabis grow tools.

A cheap grow tent with a cannabis grow light and a fan will give you a perfect easy “pop-up” grow environment that is waterproof, holds your grow light, manages heat, and can filter smells.

Summary: Cannabis Grow Time-Saving Cheat Sheet

Here’s a cheat sheet that includes everything you need to know to reduce the amount of time it takes to grow weed.

1. Low or no-effort nutrients
   1. One-part nutrient systems (Dyna-Gro works well – Use Foliage Pro at 1 tsp/gallon for the vegetative stage. Use Bloom at 1 tsp/gallon after buds start forming) – Takes less time to mix up a one-part nutrient system than nutrients that require multiple bottles to give the exact right ratios. Good choice for soil, coco, or hydro.
   2. “Just add water” grow medium – Even less work than a one-part nutrient system. Just add clean water to this organic slow-release soil. Another bonus is you don’t get runoff water with this setup, so you save the time it would normally take to remove runoff water that comes out the bottom of a pot.
2. Quick easy watering
   1. Have a dedicated table to mix nutrients, hold plants, etc. Don’t be working on the floor.
   2. Easy water access with a faucet adapter and hose
   3. Get right size container (I like to mix nutrients in a 3-gallon water container). It makes a surprising difference.
   4. Use watering pump to reach all plants easily
   5. Automatic waterers
3. Set up for fast growth and no problems
   1. Grow tent – is waterproof and easy to clean, protects your floors, and has convenient places to hang grow light, place fans, etc.
   2. Get a good grow light – Avoid fluorescent grow lights and generic LEDs. Fluorescent lights tend to get low yields/watt, and require constant adjustment to maintain the right distance from plants. Unsuitable LED grow lights tend to cause nutrient deficiencies for no reason, slowing down growth, and overall produce poor yields and/or low-THC buds (you don’t want to grow bad weed)
   3. Fast hardy strain with high yields (save time dealing with sensitive plants, with high yields you can grow fewer times a year). Recommended strains below.
   4. Grow accessories – plant twist tie, fiskar scissors, rope ratchets, plant yo-yos. Learn about more helpful cannabis growing tools.
4. Low-maintenance grow style
   1. Easiest plant training – top above the 5th node, spread branches out, supercrop as needed to control tall branches. Here’s the tutorial.
   2. Remove extra leaves in the flowering stage – Here’s the tutorial. If you remove just a few leaves at a time, it only takes a minute. Not only will this increase your yields (and also THC levels in some tests), it will dramatically reduce the time it takes to trim your weed after harvest. Any leaves with trichomes on them can also be used to make edibles or hash.
   3. Pluck most fan leaves just before harvest – Don’t remove the fan leaves on the biggest colas as they help protect the big buds during drying. Removing all the leaves right before (or during) harvest will help buds dry more evenly and will save you time trimming.
5. Maximize yields per grow to grow less often
   1. Don’t skip plant training as stated above
   2. Get the right size grow light for your space and desired yields
   3. Invest in genetics that grow good weed so you always use every last bud
   4. Recommended strains below

Recommended strains (photoperiod)

• Purple Punch – Super potent
• Skiskaberry – Creative social high
• Orange Hill Special – Smells delightful
• Blue Cheese – Hardy, unique smell, fast-flowering

Recommended strains (auto-flowering)

• THC Bomb Auto – Pretty and potent
• Cinderella Jack Auto – Dense and potent
• Pineapple Expres Auto – Smells delightful
• Girl Scout Cookies Auto – Crowd favorite

THC Bomb Auto makes beautiful potent sparkly buds

The post 9 Tips to Save Time Growing Weed appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

Do you have legal plant limits? Cannabis cultivation is legal in many countries and several states in the USA. However, many growers are subject to legal plant limits. That means they can only grow a certain number of plants at a time. For example, California (where I live) allows 21+ adults to grow up to 6 plants. In Canada, adults can legally grow up to 4 plants.

Legal plant limits? No problem! Learn how to grow up to 1 pound (~0.5 kg) of weed with 1-4 plants.

Just follow the step-by-step LST instructions and harvest a bounty of weed!

Legal plant count limits can make it harder to get big yields when growing cannabis, especially if you’re also limited on space, but there are cultivation tricks and tactics to let you harvest huge amounts of bud from small grow spaces with just a few marijuana plants. In fact, it’s possible to produce over a pound (~0.5 kg) of weed from 1-4 plants when you do it right.

Get big cannabis yields with just a few plants!

Pruning techniques like manifolding can force even one small plant to produce huge buds. This plant was less than 2 feet (0.6m) tall at harvest and produced 6.2 oz by itself.

Let marijuana plants get bigger to increase your yields. This is especially effective when combined with pruning (as explained below). These two cannabis plants are about 4 feet (1.2m) tall and produced 18.6 oz (over 1 lb) of weed between them!

This giant mass is actually made of only 4 plants trained to grow flat over a screen.

Multi-pound harvest with just 4 plants!

It’s amazing what you can accomplish with a few plants. Let’s learn how to produce a ton of weed in your marijuana garden with 1-4 plants.

1.) Grow Bigger Plants

You can only yield so much from a small plant. Bigger plants can produce a lot more weed than small plants. Just make sure you don’t let plants get too big or your space quickly gets overgrown. Growing plants to the perfect size for your setup leads to the best harvest.

In this picture: One of these clones got much bigger than the other. Although buds are similar in width, the bigger plant with longer buds produced higher yields overall. Letting a plant get big enough to completely fill your grow space can dramatically improve your final bud weights.

On average, bigger plants produce more weed.

What to do: Wait to initiate the flowering stage until plants are 1/2 the final desired size. In other words:

• Photoperiod Plants: Change to a 12/12 light schedule when plants are half size. Most strains are photoperiod strains. Plants will about double in height on average.
• Auto-flowering Plants: Auto-flowering strains start flowering on their own. Their final size depends on the strain, size of the pot, light levels, and overall care.
• Know Your Strain: Different strains “stretch” a different amount. Strains listed as “tall” strains can triple in size after buds start forming. Check the strain details when buying seeds so you know what to expect.

Cannabis plants don’t immediately stop getting bigger once they start making buds. After entering the budding/flowering stage, most plants about double in size. That means you should start 12/12 when plants are about half the final desired size.

To maximize yields, you want plants that are as big as possible without overgrowing the space. It helps to calculate how tall plants can safely get in your grow space without being too close to your grow light. No matter the height you’re going for, try to create a nice wide plant canopy. Fill the entire space under your grow light with plants.

These two plants reached half the final desired size for this grow tent. At this point, initiate the flowering stage by giving plants a 12/12 light schedule.

A few weeks later, the plants have about doubled in size. This is known as the flowering stretch. Use this knowledge to grow plants that are the right size for your grow space.

Tips to grow bigger plants

• Photoperiod strains help you control plant size – The main idea behind this step is to control the length of the vegetative stage so plants get to the optimal size. Auto-flowering strains only spend a few weeks in the vegetative stage, and therefore don’t give you much control over the final size. Learn more about the best strains to grow in Step 4.
• Use bigger pots – Bigger roots can support bigger plants. Plants in a small pot (under 2 gallons) tend to stay small while bigger pots (5-10 gallons) make it easier and faster to produce plants that are 3+ feet (1+ m) tall.
• Consider coco or hydro – Plants grown in hydroponics (and to a lesser extent coco) tend to grow faster than soil plants. If you want to get big plants fast, hydro or coco may be a good way to go. Soil or super soil can still be great choices, but they may add to the total time to harvest.
• Grow plants to 1/2 size before flowering – Initiate the flowering stage when plants are 1/2 the final desired size. This is done by using a timer to put grow lights on a 12/12 light schedule. On average, plants double in size after the switch to 12/12, though strains listed as “tall” or “short” may stretch more or less. Learn more about the flowering stretch.
• Total plant coverage – Completely fill your space before you initiate the flowering stage. Think of sculpting a plant canopy that is wide and flat like a table…

2.) Train Plants to Grow Flat

You just learned about good plant coverage. This step takes that to the next level. In addition to making sure your entire grow area is filled with plants, you increase yields even more by training them to grow wide and flat (like a table) before you initiate the flowering stage.

While plants are in the vegetative stage, bend branches down and tie them in place to maintain as flat and wide a canopy as possible. Try to make plants shaped like a table.

Why do growers train plants to grow flat? The biggest buds grow at the top of a cannabis plant, close to the grow light, Buds that are lower on the plant, or further from the light, tend to stay small. A flat canopy means you get many buds the perfect distance away. This ensures your plant grows tons of buds, and every single bud swells to a big size.

Main Idea: Train plants to grow flat and wide like a table in the vegetative stage.

Tips to grow wide, flat plants.

• Cut off the top of young plants – Cut off the top of young plants in the vegetative stage. Cutting off the top of a plant is often called “topping” in the cannabis growing world. Topping splits any stem into two, and a plant with two tops is easier to spread out to create flat plants than a plant with one main top
  • Beginner tip: Wait until the seedling has grown 6 sets of leaves. Cut off the top through the main stem above the 5th set of leaves (pictures below). Easy and simple, yet won’t stress plants. After being topped, your plant is easier to spread out and naturally grows more bushy and wide.
• Tall stems should also be “topped” – Cut off the ends of any stem that’s growing much faster than the rest. Each new pair of stems grows slower than the original one. Topping is a great tool to curb fast-growing stems in the vegetative stage.
• Spread out – As the plant grows, spread out the stems by bending them down and away from the center of the plant. Don’t forget to tie branches down with something like plant twist tie or they’ll spring right back up the next day!
• Supercrop (if necessary) – Cannabis stems get hard and woody as time goes on. If you find you need to bend a stem that’s already stiff, use the supercropping technique to bend even the toughest stems at any angle. This is a bit advanced because you can accidentally split stems. But don’t worry if you do. Simply tape broken stems back together like a cast and the plant can heal. One of the things I love about cannabis plants is it can recover if you make big mistakes in the vegetative stage.

Here’s an example of training plants to grow wide and flat for more bud sites and bigger yields.

Cut off the top of a young plant right above the 5th set of leaves (“top” the seedling above the 5th node)

When cutting through a stem, be careful not to damage the growing tips at the base of each leaf. These will become your two new stems.

Topping splits the main stem into two. You can see the two new “main stems” on each side of the cut.

Since you waited until the plant had several sets of leaves before cutting a small piece off the top, it will continue growing like nothing happened.

As the plant grows, spread out the branches and cut off the top of any stem that’s getting bigger than the others. You don’t want your plant putting too much energy into any one branch.

The plant was transplanted to a mini grow tent under an HLG 65 4000k LED grow light and given a week to adjust to the new environment.

Training time!

Bend over all the stems down and away from the center until it looks flat from the side

I used plant twist tie to hook on to each branch and tie it down where I wanted. I attached the other end to the fabric pot.

How to attach to the pot? You can use safety pins or binder clips but I think this is easier. Poke holes in the fabric using sharp pointy Fiskars pruning scissors and thread the twist tie through.

Back to training. Here’s a top view. We’re trying to fill the entire tent with this plant.

A few days later the plant has filled in nicely. Repeat the steps until you’ve filled your entire grow space.

Initiate 12/12 when plants have complete coverage at the height you want. Look at all the bud sites on this 1 plant right as it starts flowering

Here’s a side view. At this point, the only thing to do is water the plant and give it nutrients until harvest.

Partway through the flowering stage.

At harvest, this plant was just over 18″ (46 cm) tall, yet yielded several ounces because it was trained to grow wide and flat. Talk about making the most out of one small plant!

The buds started getting heavy, flattening the plant further.

Learn more about growing plants to be wide and flat.

3.) Grow Light is Key to Yields!

If you read step 1 and 2, you understand the value of plant coverage in your grow space. You’ve also learned how to produce plants that are the perfect height and shape to maximize yields.

This step is about your grow light, which is the other most important aspect of your setup when it comes to yields.

Main Idea:  Pick a grow light that maximizes yields for your grow space.

Tips:

• Avoid fluorescent grow lights (CFLs and T5s) – If yields are a key factor for you, choose LEDs, HPS, or CMH/LEC grow lights. These are the most efficient grow lights for yields when it comes to growing cannabis. Fluorescent lights like T5s and CFLs produce excellent bud but get about half the yields per watt.
• Expect 0.5-1 gram per watt – You can use wattage to estimate yields so you pick the right grow light for your goal. With LEDs, HPS, or CMH/LEC, you can typically expect about 0.5-1 gram per watt of actual power draw. So if you’re using a 400W HPS, you could expect to yields 200-400 grams. If an LED grow light uses 300W, you could expect 150-300 grams. You can yield more or less, and some specific grow light models are better than others, but that’s a good rule of thumb for an average grower. Some modern cannabis LED grow lights like HLG or Spider Farmer LEDs can achieve 1-2 grams/watt.
• Proper grow light distance to plants – Each grow light has an optimal distance it should be kept from plants. Too close and plants will burn, too far and yields are reduced. Most grow light models list the recommended light distance in their product details. If you’re not sure, check out our tutorial on light distance.
• Good light coverage – Each grow light has an optimum amount of space it can cover (its recommended “light footprint”). If light doesn’t reach your plants on the edges, those plants will produce poor yields For example, if you have a 2’x3′ (or 0.5mx1m) grow space, get a light that’s made for that size space. Luckily, this is another detail that’s usually listed in the description when you buy a grow light.

Maximize yields with the right grow light for your space

A great LED grow light produces a ton of weed with just a few plants.

Check out examples of yields to expect for 3 popular cannabis grow lights I recommend for indoor growers.

Set and Go – 100W Quantum Board (LED Grow Light)

• Grow space: 2’x2′ grow space
• Heat: Fixture gets hot but will not warm up the room
• Average Yields – 1.5 – 3.5 ounces
• Bud Quality: Potent and pretty with great effects, but buds may be airy
• Recommended model: HLG 100 LED Grow Light
  • 4000k version is best for seedlings, clones, and the vegetative stage
  • 3000k version is best for the flowering stage
  • both work from seed to harvest, but 3000k produces higher yields
• See an example setup with this grow light

If you want to start small, this light lets you hang up .a grow light and start growing decent amounts of high-quality weed in a small space. Flimsy but effective. It barely affects the electricity bill and doesn’t make much heat. Also an excellent choice for seedlings and clones.

HLG 100 should be kept about 10″ away from the tops of plants

3 plants grown with the HLG 100 using the techniques above – 5.5 oz

Great Yields Without Much Heat – 300W Quantum Board (LED Grow Light)

• Grow space: 2’x4′ or 3’x3′ grow space
• Heat: Warms up a room by a few degrees
• Average Yields – 5-10+ ounces
• Bud Quality- Dense, potent, sparkly nugs
• Recommended models: Mars Hydro SP3000 LED (2’x4′ space) or Mars Hydro FC-E3000 (3’x3′ space)
• See an example setup (with detailed yield estimates) for 2’x4′ space or 3’x3′ space.

For this size grow light, I’ve had really great results with Mars Hydro grow lights. They’re easy to use, powerful with big yields in the flowering stage, yet surprisingly gentle on young cannabis plants.

3 plants grown under a 300W LED grow light using the techniques listed above – 11.1 oz

Big Producer – 315W CMH (sometimes called LEC)

• Grow space: 3’x3′ grow space
• Heat: Burning hot bulb raises the temperature of a room by several degrees
• Average Yields: 5-12 ounces (though I’ve yielded over a pound before)
• Recommended Model: Sun System Flower Power 315W LEC/CMH
• Bud Quality – Intense smells and unbelievable trichome production (get the most glitter by using the 4200k Philips or 4100k Eye Hortilux bulb in the flowering stage)
• See an example setup with a 315 CMH.

4 plants grown under a 315 LEC grow light using the above techniques – 12.57 oz

4.) Choose the Right Genetics (plus example strains)

If yields are a consideration, pay close attention to genetics. You can greatly increase yields by choosing a strain that is known to yield more than average.

• Photoperiod strains only – To follow this tutorial, you need to be able to control the length of the vegetative stage. Photoperiod plants give you total control because they won’t start flowering until you initiate a 12/12 light schedule. Most cannabis strains are photoperiod strains, so unless you buy “auto-flowering” seeds, you’re good to go.
• High-yielding – Some strains can yield 2-3x as much as other strains in the exact same grow space and conditions. It’s astounding how big of a difference genetics makes to yields.
• Avoid “short” strains – Short strains tend to yield less because plants are smaller.

Example cannabis strains that are heavy-yielders:

• Kushberry Moonrocks – ultra potent, purple, sparkly buds
• White Widow – high-yield version of the classic strain
• Fruity Pebbles – smells sweet and fruity
• Royal Gorilla – easy to grow, top-shelf buds
• Planet of the Grapes – some of the best yields of any strain I’ve grown.
• Thug Roze R1 – massive yields, tangy ‘Sativa’ smell that’s rare these day, unique effects.
• Dos Si Dos 33 (Barney’s Farm version) – huge yields, excellent buds, easy to grow.
• THC Bomb (MSNL version) – massive yields, excellent buds, developed by a geneticist

A single White Widow cannabis plant produced 12.57 oz of dense buds under 300W.

Many branches produced over an ounce of weed after being dried, and every bud was rock hard.

5.) Advanced Techniques

If you only follow the steps above, you can produce bountiful yields with just a few plants. But some growers want to maximize their yields even more. In that case, this section is for you.

These techniques require a bit more work and know-how, but they can produce incredibly high yielding plants indoors.

• ScrOG (Screen of Green)
• Manifolding or Fluxing

ScrOG (screen of green) means using a screen or netting to train plants to grow flat before flowering.

Manifolding or Fluxing are similar techniques with the goal of creating plants where all the branches meet at one part of a plant (the “manifold”). These techniques require extra time in the vegetative stage, but reward you with huge symmetrical buds. Plus these techniques are super fun!

With manifolding or fluxing, young plants are cut up in the vegetative stage so that all branches come from one main “manifold” on the main stem.

The base of a “manifolded” plant

Fluxing is a different take on manifolding, but follows the same essential principles of splitting the main stem and creating a symmetrical plant structure

When followed step-by-step, these techniques produce outstanding harvests on every plant

A grower named “nugbuckets” designed and popularized the manifolding technique (though he called it “main-lining” at the time) to maximize yields per plant. Here’s one of the manifolded plants from his original tutorial. A huge thank you to nugbuckets for sharing your knowledge with the home growing community!

Now you are armed with the knowledge to produce tons of marijuana even if you have plant limits. It’s time to grow the yields you want!

GrowWeedEasy.com has hundreds and hundreds of pages!

Check out some articles you may not have seen…

• Nebula’s Manifold – Cannabis “Main-Lining”  – Turn your cannabis plants into a lean, mean, organized green producing machine! The technique is pretty keen if you know what I mean.
• How Long Does It Take to Grow Weed Indoors? – When we first started growing, we asked this question so many times only to get generic, non-specific answers. That won’t happen here! We only deal in details!
• Stealth Growing: How to NOT get Caught Growing Weed – Despite the ever-increasing legality of growing your own cannabis, it’s still be best to be on the safe side and remain as stealthy as possible. Even if it’s legal where you are, theives know that the police won’t investigate cannabis plant theft…
• How to Save Money When Growing Weed – When you grow your own weed, you should experience an increase in quality, but it should also cost drastically less than purchasing froma dispensary. If your weed isn’t dirt cheap (yet), let us help you get there!

The post How to Produce a Ton of Weed with Only 1-4 Plants appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

GrowWeedEasy.com teaches you how easy it is to grow weed. Growing weed can be easy when you know what to do, but most “how to grow marijuana” tutorials make it seem like you need a degree in horticulture.

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Even first-time growers produce great harvests when they follow our tutorials.

Who Made GrowWeedEasy.com?

Grow Weed Easy.com was started in 2010 by home growers Nebula Haze and Sirius Fourside. Together, they built a free online “encyclopedia of cannabis home grow” with 650+ expert home cannabis cultivation tutorials about every aspect of growing weed.

GrowWeedEasy.com is now the biggest and most comprehensive source of free home grow information in the world.  We show you how easy it is to grow your own marijuana at home.

The GrowWeedEasy.com Ethos

Our Goal: You grow as much top-shelf weed as possible, with as little time and effort needed to grow your desired yields and cannabis bud quality.

Whether you’re a total beginner who wants to start growing cannabis indoors for the first time, or an experienced grower who wants to upgrade your skills to Pro level, this website was built for you.

Looking for a complete harvest system?

If you want dense, beautiful, great-smelling weed, our new digital book gives you our complete harvest system. Follow the straightforward instructions and massively upgrade your results every harvest. A few small changes can make all the difference.

Get our fool-proof harvest system.

FOR SERIOUS GROWERS ONLY

🌟 $200 Off Special Offer: Enroll today in Home Grow Masterclass!

If you’re reading this right now, you want to grow great cannabis at home.

Cannabis plants isn’t a regular house plant, but learning how to grow isn’t as complicated growers make it seem. We’ve spent the last 16 years breaking down the home grow process so anyone can learn it.

The key to consistent harvest results is simple: follow a proven system developed for home growers.

You could waste an entire grow learning through trial and error…

Or take the shortcut and harvest a sea of fat, dense, beautiful buds that smell great. At home!

Follow our 5-week course and get walked through each part step-by-step. Build by experienced home growers and honed with hundreds of students since 2019, we ensure you achieve great results on your very next harvest.

Learn How To Grow Top-Shelf Weed at Home!

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You may be asking yourself these common growing questions:

“How do I grow marijuana indoors?”

Read this guide on how to grow marijuana indoors. Or check out this article to learn what materials you need to get started growing your own marijuana!

Luckily, it’s really easy to get a cannabis seed to sprout!

“How much money will it cost to get started?”

If you’re considering growing weed, it costs as little as $300 to get started growing or a bit more for a semi-automatic, high-yielding bubbleponics grow system. See examples of yields to expect, electricity use & startup costs for different setups. Read this article to see even more growing styles with different price ranges.

“Where can I get marijuana seeds?”

Check out our How to Buy Marijuana Seeds Online Guide (with delivery to every state of the USA) to safely get your hands on good genetics. Starting with good seeds lets you choose the looks, smell, and effects of your buds!

Learn where it’s safe to buy cannabis seeds online (2026 update).

What do good cannabis seeds look like?

Learn about the best marijuana beginner strains and how to research and find the right strain.

Cannabis buds are generally green, but can also be pink or purple with certain strains.

“How much will electricity cost each month?”

If you’re just growing a few marijuana plants for personal use, it will cost you $20-$100+/month for electricity, depending on what grow lights (electricity) and nutrients you use. On average, I’d say a hobby-size grower might pay about $50/month to grow, but it depends greatly on your setup and local electricity costs! How much will electricity cost each month?

“How can I increase my marijuana yields?”

We have quite a few techniques to choose from or combine! See some of our most popular pages:

• Super Cropping – A simple technique to bigger yields
• Simplest Guide to Growing Short & Bushy Marijuana Plants
• LST (Low Stress Training) – Training your plants can easily double your harvest!
• Or check out our page on the controversial defoliation technique

Even More Ways to Increase Cannabis Yields

1. Increase Light Intensity (plus choose right light for desired yields & possibly add CO2)
2. Manipulate How Plants Grow (a free way to yield more bud indoors)
3. Provide Right Nutrients (low Nitrogen in the flowering stage, and remember sometimes less is more!)
4. Control Growing Environment (let the growing environment work for you)
5. Harvest Plants Properly (most importantly, don’t harvest early!)
6. Lastly, it’s important to remember that the strain has a major effect on yields!

Two small cannabis plants can yield several ounces of premium weed!

“How can I grow weed privately?”

Read guide on growing weed indoors without anyone knowing. But remember the most important factors to stealth growing: “No tell, no smell, no sell.” Never tell anyone, not even your best friend, that you’re growing. Be on top of preventing smells, and never ever sell cannabis. Breaking one of those 3 principles is how 99% of growers get found out!

“What if my plants get sick?”

The most common issue a grower runs into is a pH imbalance. Barring that, your marijuana plants likely either have a nutrient deficiency, heat or light stress, or are being attacked by some sort of marijuana mold, pest or bug. Whether you call it weed, cannabis, sinsemilla, skunk, pot, marijuana, or something else, the plant known as Cannabis Sativa is a hardy weed in the wild and can actually be easy to grow indoors at home when you know what to do.

Growing Medical Marijuana

“Medical marijuana” has become a household name. The body of evidence for medical marijuana in the treatment of cancer and other illnesses is growing every day. And for those who need medical marijuana, growing weed indoors is the perfect way to ensure a safe, regular supply of buds, for cheap.

In fact, when you grow weed indoors for personal use, you often end up with way too much. If you catch the growing bug like I did, and if you start enjoying the process of tending your cannabis garden just for the sake of gardening, you’re going to have to find a way to press, cook, freeze, and concentrate all your extra buds. 🙂

As you probably know, both medical marijuana and recreational cannabis have been decriminalized or legalized in many places around the world and weed is becoming legal in more places every day! Yet there still aren’t many simple indoor “how to grow weed” guides for beginners (even for those who legally grow, such as medical marijuana users and those who live in places where marijuana is legalized for personal use).

If so, I know how you feel. It can be hard to weed out all the bad information on the internet and find well-researched, free tips or instructions on how to grow your own cannabis. That’s why Grow Weed Easy.com aims to be a simple online resource that explains from start to finish what you need to do when growing cannabis so you can learn how to grow cannabis with great yields and potent buds, even if you only have a small grow space like a closet or even a computer case.

We’ve grown cannabis out of closets and have gotten ounces of buds and you can too. Grow Weed Easy.com covers many popular cannabis cultivation topics, including:

• A comparison between different cannabis grow lights including experience-based information about LED grow lights
• A page that teaches you the basics of how to grow weed
• Detailed how-to weed growing tutorials
• How to start growing weed tomorrow  (simplest cannabis growing guide!)
• Grow 4 oz with a 100W LED <– An Easy Way to Start Growing!
• Our famous grow guide that teaches you how to grow weed using bubbleponics (hydro).

Start Growing Weed Today!

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Looking for a growing book?

If you are interested in doing a bit of reading or would like to know more about the science behind marijuana hydroponics or horticulture, I strongly recommend viewing our page of Marijuana Grow Book Reviews. Read reviews of marijuana grow books. We would love to hear about your experiences with growing cannabis. Whether you are a pro grower already or are just starting your first plant, we have learned so much from our readers both beginners and masters! If you have any suggestions, comments, concerns, or just want to ask some questions about your marijuana grow, please contact us!

Happy Growing!
Nebula Haze & Sirius Fourside

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The post Grow Weed Easy – Learn How to Grow Cannabis Tutorials appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

• What Nutrients Grow the Best Weed?
• Best NPK Ratios to Grow Cannabis
• 7 Proven Cannabis Nutrient Brands
• Organic vs “Chemical” Nutrients

Cannabis Plants Need Great Nutrients to Thrive

by Nebula Haze

Once you start growing cannabis, figuring out the best nutrients for your setup can be confusing. Let’s start with a few proven cannabis nutrient systems. Dyna-Gro Superthrive Grow & Bloom are probably the cheapest professional cannabis liquid nutrients.

Mini cannabis plant I grew with Dyna-Gro nutrients (see the grow journal).

My favorite nutrient system I personally use to grow cannabis is the General Hydroponics Flora trio. Plants grow ultra-fast, buds get huge, and potency is always top-tier.

Cannabis I grew from seed to weed in under 90 days with the General Hydroponics Flora trio (see the grow journal).

The most popular cannabis nutrients for home growers (based on multiple GrowWeedEasy.com home grower surveys) is the Fox Farm cannabis nutrient trio.

A recent harvest. These cannabis plants grown with the Fox Farm trio in auto-watering pots (see the grow journal). The plants clearly loved this combo!

There are many nutrient companies aimed at growing marijuana and each company creates multiple lines of nutrients, fertilizers, and supplements for different purposes. Which specific fertilization requirements do cannabis plants have, and what should you look for when buying nutrients?

So many choices, yet so little information on each bottle! The best way to pick cannabis nutrients is to choose a brand already proven to work great for growing weed.

Don’t worry, I’m going to break it all down so it’s easy for you to pick the best nutrients for your cannabis growing setup.

Life Stages and Cannabis Nutrient Needs

As a cannabis grower, your goal is to give your plants the nutrients they need, when they need it. There are two main life stages for cannabis plants (vegetative stage and flowering stage), and each stage has different nutrient requirements. The good news? Lots of nutrient companies make great products that work excellently for growing weed; they just use different formulas and blends.

One thing to keep in mind is there are no perfect or “best” cannabis nutrients, because every environment is different, there are some differences between grow mediums, and not all cannabis plants are exactly the same. That’s why you’ll see no two sets of nutrients are exactly the same. That being said, if you get any of the recommended nutrient brands in this article and follow the instructions on how much to give to your cannabis, it will work great for 100% of plants.

If you choose not to use the recommended nutrients below, or are shopping around for nutrients, here’s what to keep in mind.

What Makes Nutrients Different From Each Other?

What’s the difference between cannabis nutrients?

• Nutrient Ratios – Each brand has different nutrient ratios they believe are optimal for each stage of growth. Essentially, they each have their own “secret sauce” or recipe that they think works best. Note: The 3 numbers on the front of every nutrient bottle are known as “NPK”, which stands for Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), and Potassium (K). These are the 3 nutrients your cannabis plants need the most.
• Ingredients – Companies use many different combinations of chemical and organic compounds to create cannabis nutrients, and these affect how your plant absorbs nutrients. For example, two nutrient bottles with the exact same nutrient ratios on the label may have somewhat different effects on plants because they use different nutrient compounds. The ingredients also determine whether a particular set of nutrients are considered organic (come from living sources) or synthetic (come from processed minerals).
• Soil, Coco, or Hydro? – It’s really important to match your growing medium with your nutrients. “Soil” nutrients are different from “Hydroponic” nutrients. Typically, hydroponic nutrients contain everything a plant needs to grow and can be used in any grow medium, while soil nutrients only provide some nutrients and expect your plant to be able to get some trace nutrients from the soil. Coco coir does not contain any nutrients so it is generally considered a type of hydroponics when it comes to making sure you provide complete nutrition through the nutrients. If growing in coco, either choose hydroponic nutrients or nutrients made specifically for coco coir.

What’s the Best NPK Ratio for Cannabis Nutrients?

For the best results, your cannabis needs the following nutrient ratios…

Where is the NPK information? Most nutrient bottles display 3 numbers, often called N-P-K, which stands for Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium

Why “K” for Potassium? The atomic symbol of Potassium is “K” from Neo-Latin kalium.

Vegetative Stage (First Phase of Life)

In other words, you want to use a “Vegetative” (high Nitrogen) nutrient formula for the first stage of life known as the vegetative stage. Vegetative nutrients are also sometimes called “General Purpose”, “All Purpose” or “Grow” nutrients. These nutrients contain everything crucial to help cannabis plants grow healthy new green leaves and stems.

What to start giving vegetative nutrients: If using high-quality soil, you can skip vegetative nutrients for the first 3-4 weeks while your plant uses up the nutrients in the soil. Otherwise, you should start with vegetative nutrients around the time your plant opens its first leaves. Give good nutrition from the beginning!

Flowering Stage (Second Phase of Life)

Use a “Bloom” (low Nitrogen) nutrient formula with plenty of P & K for the flowering stage. Phosphorus tends to increase the number of flowers, while Potassium helps increase the bulk/weight of flowers. Be careful, though because going overboard with either one can burn your plants.

The main thing is to avoid giving too much Nitrogen in the flowering stage after buds have formed. High levels of Nitrogen can discourage bud development and add an unpleasant taste to buds. The too-high levels of Nitrogen is why a general-purpose plant nutrient isn’t a good choice in the flowering stage.

When to start giving flowering nutrients: Start using bloom nutrients after buds start forming. This ensures your plant gets lower levels of Nitrogen and plenty of Phosphorus & Potassium. This combo is crucial to the best cannabis bud development.

Cannabis needs lower N, but plenty of P & K to make big buds in the flowering stage.

In a pinch, nutrients for Shultz “cactus” (often found at Home Depot, Walmart, or gardening centers) or “succulents” can be used in the flowering stage until you get better nutrients, because it contains low amounts of N and plenty of P & K. 

Dyna-Gro Superthrive Grow & Bloom are probably the cheapest professional cannabis liquid nutrient option.

Note: Don’t use any type of chemical “some-release” nutrients (like fertilizer spikes, or “time-release” Miracle-Gro soil or “slow-release crystals”). They deliver too much N in the flowering stage and buds may not get as big as they could, even if you’re doing everything else right.

Important Tips on Cannabis Supplements

Do your cannabis plants need special supplements to grow great weed? Nope. When I first started growing I thought you needed some kind of magic supplements to grow the best buds. That’s a myth. Base nutrients are all you need to grow great cannabis buds. But supplements do have some uses. For example, supplements can do things like help make cannabis plants more resistant to heat, help their roots thrive in a hydroponic reservoir, and other helpful uses specific to your particular setup.

• Supplements vs Base Nutrients: Know the Difference. Base nutrients provide all the necessary NPK and micronutrients for healthy growth, which means that supplements are not necessary for cannabis plants to thrive and produce an amazing harvest as long as you use good base nutrients. If you see that the NPK ratios printed on the front of a bottle are really low (like 0.2-0.2-0.1), that is one sign that this product is some type of supplement. Some supplements are helpful for growing weed, but going overboard may cause unwanted reactions or burn your plant. Do you need supplements to grow great weed?
• Stick to One Nutrient Brand: Use nutrients and supplements from the same company or brand to minimize unexpected interactions. Combining nutrients and supplements from different companies greatly increases the chance of unhappy cannabis plants. It’s also a good idea when changing up your routine to only add one new supplement at a time and watch how plants react before adding anything else new or different. If this is your first grow, try to pick just one or two supplements that appeal to you, or even stick to just base nutrients to simplify things. Talking from experience, it’s easy to go overboard and waste a bunch of money while actually making things worse for plants. Nutrient companies will happily sell you supplements you don’t actually need.

Do you need special cannabis supplements?

Now that you’ve got the basics, let me share some proven examples of cannabis nutrients. After that, if you want to dig deeper, I’ll teach you more about how to pick the best marijuana nutrients for your setup. Let’s go!

7 Examples of Great Cannabis Nutrients

I handpicked this list of nutrients for growing cannabis. Not only have I had great results with them, they have also been extensively tested by real marijuana growers. These nutrient systems are guaranteed to work well for growing cannabis when used properly.

Click on the name of the cannabis nutrient brand to learn more, or just keep scrolling down to learn about them all.

• General Hydroponics – Soil, Coco Coir & Hydroponics
• Fox Farm – Soil & Coco Coir
• Botanicare – Soil & Hydroponics
• House & Garden – Soil, Coco Coir & Hydroponics (lately it’s been difficult to find certain H&G products online)
• Canna Coco – Coco Coir
• Dyna-Gro – Soil, Coco Coir & Hydroponics

Check out 5 Honorable Mentions

Many nutrient brands work great for growing cannabis from seedling to harvest

General Hydroponics Flora Trio

General Hydroponics offers a simple duo with one bottle for the vegetative stage, and one bottle for the flowering stage called FloraNova Grow + Bloom. This nutrient system is cheap, simple, and easy with excellent results in soil/coco/hydro. The biggest issue I have with the duo is the liquid is so thick it can be annoying to measure out.

However, their Flora trio is a winner. A tried and true favorite of mine, the Flora trio works very well for growing cannabis. I’ve had great success with it in every grow medium including soil, coco coir, and hydroponics. I used this nutrient system for almost a decade and have always been thrilled with the results. I’ve been testing new nutrient systems so I can report back to our readers like you, but based on my years of success I know you’ll be happy with the Flora trio. Best for…

• Soil
• Coco Coir
• Hydroponics

·Soil, Coco Coir, or Hydroponics (DWC, Bubbleponics, etc)

General Hydroponics Flora Series Nutrient Trio + (Optional) CaliMagic (add 1 tsp/gallon Hydroguard in hydroponics)

This is personally my favorite nutrients for growing cannabis because it just works. Plants grow fast. Buds come out big and potent. Follow the instructions on the side of the bottle at half-strength for great results in soil or coco. If growing in hydroponics with roots directly in water, use similarly to soil or coco, just make sure to also get Hydroguard to protect your hydroponic roots from root rot.

If you’re using filtered water, it’s also a good idea to use a Cal-Mag supplement to replace some of the minerals that are normally found in water. A Cal-Mag supplement also also adds extra “stuff” to help stabilize the pH of your water, which tends to fluctuate in filtered water since there is not a lot of buffer. Some cannabis growers also add a Cal-Mag supplement as a preventative when growing in coco or using an LED grow light, since both tend to increase the Cal-Mag needs of your plant. However, I’ve found the base nutrients seem to work great by themselves even in coco under LEDs. Ultimately, CaliMagic is optional and many growers get excellent results without it. I used to use it consistently, but I stopped using it once I started using tap water and haven’t noticed any difference. If you do choose to include CaliMagic, it’s used at 1 tsp/gallon.

Here is my full tutorial on using General Hydroponics Flora nutrients for growing cannabis.

General Hydroponics Flora Trio – Base Nutrients (All You Need)

(Optional) General Hydroponics CaliMagic – Use this if you’re growing with filtered or purified water. It helps replace some of the minerals found in regular water.

(For Hydroponics) Hydroguard – Add 1 tsp/gallon to prevent root rot if growing cannabis in a hydroponic setup like DWC or Bubbleponics.

Check out a few different grow journals featuring the GH Flora trio

• 600W Hydroponic Grow Journal – 23.09 oz Harvest
• Kind K5 XL1000 LED Grow Journal – 1.2 lb Harvest
• 250W HPS Cannabis Grow Journal – 6.2 oz Yield
• Nebula’s 315W LEC Grow Journal – 1.1 lb Harvest
• Super Soil (“Just Add Water” Soil) vs Coco Coir (used General Hydroponics Flora Trio with the coco coir plants)
• LECs vs HLG 300 LEDs

The General Hydroponics Flora trio is my personal favorite nutrient system for growing weed in soil, coco, or hydroponics. I’ve used it for all grow media and consistently get fast growth and big, dense, clean-tasting buds.

Examples of cannabis I’ve grown with General Hydroponics Flora trio:

General Hydroponics Flora trio using a 315 LEC grow light

General Hydroponics Flora trio using an Electric Sky 300 LED grow light

Fox Farm Nutrient Trio

The Fox Farm trio is a popular nutrient system for cannabis growers that contains a variety of natural sources for nutrients like earthworm castings and bat guano, which cannabis plants thrive on. Fox Farm’s original nutrients contain too much organic matter for DWC/hydro, which increases the chance of root problems, but all that organic matter is great for plants in a hand-watered environment to enhance smell and flavor of your finished product. Fox Farm offer hydroponics-specific nutrients that don’t contain any organic matter called the “Cultivation Nation trio”, but this trio is not as good as the General Hydroponics Flora trio for growing cannabis, in my experience.

Best for…

• Soil
• Coco Coir

·Soil version

Fox Farms Nutrient Trio for Soil

Very concentrated, less is more. “Grow Big” & “Tiger Bloom” provide most of the major nutrients your cannabis needs, while “Big Bloom” has many micronutrients and beneficial compounds that help nutrient uptake and root health. This trio works extremely well by itself, just follow the feeding schedule (here’s a PDF, here’s a JPG) from Fox Farms at half-strength to start.

Check out a grow journal using the FF trio for Soil!

Fox Farms Nutrient Trio for Soil

·Coco version

Fox Farms Nutrient Trio for Hydroponics & Bushdoctor Cal-Mag (Fox Farm’s version of Cal-Mag)

Use the “hydro” version of Fox Farms nutrients when growing in coco coir. Two bottles are the same as the soil trio, but the “Grow Big” bottle is formulated slightly differently for a soilless grow. For example, it contains extra levels of micronutrients that are normally found in the soil. Follow the feeding schedule (here’s a PDF, here’s a JPG) from Fox Farms at half-strength to start. Generally, the Fox Farms nutrient system will prevent Cal-Mag deficiencies, but it’s good to have extra Cal-Mag on hand just in case whenever growing cannabis in coco coir, if using filtered water, or if growing with LED grow lights.

Fox Farms Nutrient Trio for Hydroponics & Bushdoctor Cal-Mag

·Hydroponic version

Fox Farms Cultivation Nation Trio (Micro, Grow, Bloom) & Cal-Mag

This is a Fox Farm copy of the General Hydroponics Flora Trio. It has the exact same nutrient ratios and the exact same ingredients as the General Hydroponics Flora trio. I’ve used it with good results over 2 different grows, though I personally prefer the Flora trio because the Cultivation Nation bottles tended to leak if the bottle was tipped over. A leaking bottle means that air is getting in, which will cause your nutrients to go back more quickly. I also noticed these nutrients tend to crystalize, while the Flora trio nutrients always are fully liquid.

I recommend getting General Hydroponics Flora trio instead of the Cultivation Nation trio. The Flora trio is cheaper and the nutrients are better.

Botanicare

Botanicare is a great company that’s been around for as long as I’ve been growing, and whose supplements I’ve been using for years (specifically, their Hydroguard supplement is the most effective thing I’ve used to prevent root rot in a hydroponic setup). Best for…

• Soil
• Coco
• Hydroponics

·Soil version 

Get the duo: Grow, Bloom

Use “Grow” in the vegetative stage, and “Bloom” in the flowering stage. Simple! I wish there were more nutrient systems formulated to be used that way. This duo is listed as “Premium natural and organic based plant food”. That means there are both organic ingredients and non-organic ingredients.

The company claims this duo is usable in coco, but I’ve only seen growers use it in soil. The name is “Soil Formula” after all. It it is missing a lot of extra micronutrients that would be found in soil but are not found in coco coir.  Botanicare recommends adding their Cal-Mag Plus if growing in coco, as it adds extra Nitrogen, Calcium, Magnesium, and Iron, but it is still missing some micronutrients like copper and manganese. If you’re looking for a one-part nutrient system that works well in coco coir, I recommend getting Dyna-Gro Foliage Pro + Bloom (more info below).

Note: As of April 2024, growers are reporting new bottles of the Bloom Soil formula have different ingredients than before. Check out this picture of the new label Botanicare Pure Blend Pro Bloom Soil Formula label with ingredients (front label for reference) by grower Ben in April 2024, which shows most ingredients are minerals with kelp as the only organic ingredient. Here’s the old label that used to have the main ingredients of fish meal, composted seabird guano, kelp, and then mineral ingredients. This doesn’t mean the new formula is necessarily better or worse, but it seems to be different. Check back for updates as we learn more.

Get the duo: Pure Blend Pro Grow (Vegetative Stage) & Bloom (Flowering Stage)

·Coco or Hydroponic version

Get the trio: Base, Grow, Bloom (need all 3 bottles for all phases of growth)

The three bottles are all that’s needed to get your plants successfully to harvest time, just follow the feeding schedule from Botanicare [PDF], starting at half the recommended strength. If growing in hydroponics, Hydroguard is an important root supplement that will help prevent your plant from getting root rot in a hydroponic reservoir. The KIND series has been highly recommended by several hydro growers I know in real life and Botanicare makes the best root supplement I know of for hydroponics.

Base, Grow, Bloom (need all 3 bottles for all phases of growth)

Hydroponic Root Supplement: Add 1 tsp/gallon of Hydroguard to prevent root rot if growing cannabis in a hydroponic setup like DWC or Bubbleponics.

From a grower: “Botanicare KIND is like the opposite spectrum [of the Botanicare Pure Blend series]. The Base is just Nitrogen and Calcium. Grow and Bloom both have most of the minerals in them, along with things like sea kelp. The Bloom is also 0-6-6. Grow at 2-2-4. So quite literally you can call the shots on Nitrogen and Calcium. That level of control hasn’t been around a great deal in our market. For the savvy grower, this is a pretty nice tool.”

House & Garden – Often difficult to find online!

The House & Garden lineup is an expensive but effective line-up. From a grower: “H&G was started by a top researcher from Canna. They are right outside of Amsterdam and because cannabis is legal there, so both Canna and H&G are able to do R&D using cannabis. I don’t know about Canna, but I know that House and Garden makes all their own nutrients in-house and they work great.”

The biggest downside of House and Garden (besides price) is it’s getting harder to find online. This brand is often best purchased in person at a hydro store. Get a custom nutrient schedule directly from the people at House & Garden via their free online nutrient calculator.

Name of base nutrients for…

• Soil – Soil A + B
• Coco Coir – Coco A + B
• Hydroponics (Recirculating) – Aqua Flakes A + B
• Hydroponics (Drain-to-Waste) – Hydro A + B

Some of the most popular House & Garden supplements for growing cannabis: Roots Excelurator, Algen Extract, Bud XL, and Shooting Powder.

Learn about the full House & Garden nutrient and supplement for growing cannabis.

This plant was grown using the House & Garden Line-up (A+B as base nutrients, plus the supplements Roots Excelurator, Algen Extract, Bud-XL, and shooting powder)

Canna Coco

Canna Coco is a very popular nutrient company for pot growers who use coco coir. Their nutrients have been specifically designed to grow cannabis in coco(as you may be able to tell from the name).

• Best for Coco Coir

Canna Coco A + B & Cal-Mag

This combo is a crowd favorite – many coco coir growers write in to tell us this is their favorite cannabis nutrient for growing in coco coir. Get a custom nutrient schedule from Canna or use this pre-made one [JPG].

From a grower: “Canna is a Dutch company and one of the best IMO. They make a great product line for growing in coco coir and test their products on real cannabis plants.”

Another grower said, “Canna products are one of the only nutrient lines to be developed primarily for cannabis (and tested on live plants). They’ve been doing so for almost 30 years. Cost is a little higher than competitors but worth every penny.”

A different grower added, “Canna – I have only used their coco line, but it is the highest quality you will find.”

Dyna-Gro

Originally designed for orchids, Dyna-Gro nutrients have proven to work exceptionally well for cannabis plants. If you want professional results without spending a ton of money or having to mix multiple bottles together, this combo gives your plants everything they need from seed to harvest. Dyna-Gro nutrients are suitable for any growing medium including soil, coco, or hydro.

• Works great in Soil, Coco or Hydroponics

-Dyna-Gro / Superthrive (Foliage Pro + Bloom) – Use “Foliage Pro” in the vegetative stage and “Bloom” in the flowering stage.

Note: Dyna-Gro was recently purchased by a company called Superthrive. As a result, some nutrient bottles say “Dyna-Gro” and some say “Superthrive”. Confusing, but as long as they’re called “Foliage Pro” and “Bloom” they are the exact same nutrients and work just as well for growing cannabis.

Dyna-Gro Foliage Pro + Bloom is my recommended nutrient system for newbies. One bottle for the vegetative stage, one for the flowering stage. Super simple!

Grow Journals featuring Foliage Pro + Bloom

• Topped vs Natural with Auto-flowering Plants
• LED Grow Light Showdown: Mars Hydro TSL-2000W vs Spider Farmer SF-2000
• Nebula’s 65W LED Mini Tent Grow Journal (HLG 65 LED Grow Light)
• Nebula’s 100W Spider Farmer SF-1000 LED Grow Journal 

Cannabis I’ve grown using Foliage Pro + Bloom

Dyna-Gro Foliage Pro + Bloom worked great under a tiny 65W LED grow light

5 Honorable Mentions for Cannabis Nutrients

I don’t have personal experience with these nutrient brands, but they are popular for growing cannabis.

Advanced Nutrients

One of the more expensive cannabis nutrient brands. Their 3-part base nutrients are all you need to produce great yields and excellent buds, and this part is reasonably priced. However, Advanced Nutrients offers a ton of additional supplements to choose from. Here is an eye-popping $600 starter pack that includes multiple items from their lineup. Just remember, supplements are not necessary to produce great weed (and the truth is, they’re mostly water).

My friend Santacabrera swears by the Advanced Nutrients lineup for his autoflowering plants.

Jack’s Nutrients

Their main sell is they offer cheap dry nutrients that last forever. You get a lot for a little money. Supposedly their nutrients can be used in any grow medium but I’ve mostly seen it used for growing cannabis in soil. I know several cannabis growers that swear by Jacks. The cannabis growers I’ve spoken to use Classic 20-20-20 ($14) in the vegetative stage, and Blossom Booster 10-30-20 ($14) for the flowering stage.

I decided to do a little more research and wrote to Jacks Nutrients directly and about what they recommended for cannabis plants. This is what I asked, “Which Jacks Nutrients products do you recommend for growing cannabis?” and this is what they said.”Have you ever tested your water quality before? If not, you can find more information about our lab here. 20-20-20 and 10-30-20 are great formulas for gardening but are not the best choices for cannabis. Our 321 line is usually the best fit without a water test because it offers the most flexibility due to its 3-part system. Here is a copy of the schedule [PDF] for reference, but you can also find more information on 321 here.” The representative encouraged cannabis growers to write them directly with questions using the contact form at the bottom of their website home page.

However, their 321 line somehow costs $170 instead of the total of $28 for the ones I’ve seen cannabis growers actually. I’ve never heard of a cannabis grower using the 321 Line. On top of all that, I see that they still recommend using Blossom Booster 10-30-20 ($14) for the crucial flowering stage, which is the time where nutrients matter the most. I personally believe there is no reason or benefit to their ultra-expensive nutrients, and if you do want expensive nutrients, to go for a company that’s more proven in the cannabis cultivation world.

I’ve seen cannabis growers use Classic 20-20-20 in the vegetative stage, and Blossom Booster 10-30-20 for the flowering stage.

Mega Crop by Greenleaf Nutrients

Mega Crop is supposedly for all grow mediums, it’s marketed as an all-in-one solution that gives complete nutrition from seed to harvest. However, I have been hesitant to try it because I know that cannabis plants seem to grow bigger buds when getting special nutrient ratios during bud formation (specifically cannabis plants in the flowering stage respond well to more Phosphorus and Potassium, with less Nitrogen). However, Mega Crop is extremely popular and many growers swear by it.

The idea of having an all-in-one solution is intriguing, and I’ve seen many examples of great harvests. Mega Crop definitely can grow great weed from what I’ve seen, but I still have a few reservations and haven’t personally used it yet.

Technaflora

Supposedly for all grow mediums, though I haven’t tried it yet on cannabis plants. This one is popular because it supposedly uses “only the finest raw materials”. I’ve seen many growers get great results with it for growing weed.

They sell a popular “Recipe for Success” Starter Kit so you can try out the full lineup for only $55.

Nectar for the Gods

Another option that seems to shine for cannabis plants in soil. It is an organic, calcium-based line that is designed to “bind and carry nutrients into the root system” for plants to use. The company says it is most available to cannabis plants in the pH range of 6.2-6.8. Considering it uses organic ingredients, it shouldn’t be used in a grow that gives water via sprayers or misters as the ingredients can clog an irrigation system. An expensive nutrient option, but well-proven to grow excellent organic cannabis. It used to be a one-part nutrient system for soil, but now you need several bottles of different things. My biggest issue with it is the whole line seems kind of confusing and hard to know what is what.

Their main bundle includes these products: Medusa Magic (Soil Nutrient), Gaia Mania (Supplement 1-5-1), Herculean Harvest (Liquid Bone Meal), and Zeus Juice (Humic Acids and Kelp)

Humboldts Secret

Also marketed as good for soil, coco, and hydroponics. They also offer a Humboldt’s Secret Starter Kit with some of their most popular supplements for those who want to try a “full lineup” of nutrients at a reasonable cost compared to alternatives like Advanced Nutrients. Cannabis growers especially love their Golden Tree additive, especially in the flowering stage. Overall, this seems to be a solid choice for growing weed.

Get just the base nutrients

Or get the starter kit to try the full lineup with nutrients and popular supplements.

One Last Tip…

When using a complete nutrient system like the ones listed above, always start at half the recommended strength by the manufacturer, and only increase nutrient levels if your plant is getting pale. If you’re giving too low levels of nutrients, the entire plant will start to appear overall pale or lime green. If you have a different nutrient deficiency (diagnose your plant here), chances are it’s caused by incorrect pH, not by too-low levels of nutrients.

It’s a good idea to always start at half the manufacturer’s recommendation! Most nutrient companies recommend way too much for growing cannabis!

Why not keep adding more and more nutrients? Doesn’t more equal better? No, nutrients are more like a multivitamin than food. After your plant has enough nutrients, adding more gives you diminishing returns, and too much starts causing the following problems.

A cannabis plant turns pale all over (left) when it needs higher levels of nutrients overall. If plant is a healthy green (right), stick to half the recommended dose.

Too high levels of nutrients causes…

• Nutrient burn – nutrient burn causes tips of leaves and edges of buds to appear burned. It isn’t a huge deal but doesn’t look as pretty, especially if it gets bad enough to spread to your buds.
• Random nutrient deficiencies and lockout
• Buds don’t grow as big as they could have in the flowering stage, especially if levels of Nitrogen are too high
• Leaf discoloration may spread to the sugar leaves on the buds (not a big deal, but not pretty either)

If you see nutrient burn, it usually means you gave your plants too high levels of nutrients.

Now that you understand everything you need to know about picking the right nutrient system, check out some supplements!

Learn About Cannabis Supplements:

• What supplements actually work to grow better weed?
• Increase Bud Quality & Yields
• Protect Against Heat

Important! The Best Cannabis Nutrients Aren’t Enough!

Crucial Piece of Information; Check the pH of your water to plants to prevent nutrient deficiencies

It may surprise you that the most common reason growers get nutrient deficiencies is because the pH is too high or too low. This happens even if the right amounts of nutrients are present because your weed simply cannot absorb the nutrients if the pH isn’t in the correct range.

Optimum cannabis pH for..

Soil: 6.0 – 7.0
Coco Coir: 5.5 – 6.5
Hydroponics: 5.5 – 6.5

Checking the pH will make a huge difference to your grow by keeping plants vibrant and healthy. It only takes a few minutes each time you water your plants! If you get a digital pH pen, it only takes seconds to test your pH!

Learn more about pH & preventing nutrient deficiencies here!

Organic vs Chemical (Synthetic) Nutrients

This is a common question we get at Grow Weed Easy: Are organic nutrients better than chemical nutrients? It’s not a matter of which one is better, because they’re good at different things.

Organic Nutrients

• Bud Smell & Taste – Many growers believe organically grown cannabis will create the most fragrant and “smoothest” buds. Some of the best benefits to smell and taste seem to come from using composted soil that’s been amended with nutrients from natural sources. This creates a living soil with colonies of beneficial microorganisms and is often associated with a bolder taste and smell in buds. However, watering your plants with liquid nutrients that just happen to be organic tends to get results similar to synthetic or mineral-based nutrients. It seems to be the soil that makes the difference when it comes to organic growing.
• More Natural – Especially when growing in a living soil, you’re creating a home for your roots that is as close to nature as possible (only better because you’re making sure your plant gets everything it needs!)
• Not for Hydroponics – Organic nutrients are not the best choice for hydroponic systems because any organic matter can cause unwanted stuff to grow in your reservoir. It’s possible to grow organic hydro but let me just say this: as of yet, I’ve never seen organic hydroponics go well for someone, though I wouldn’t mind being proven wrong 😉

Recommended Organic Nutrients

There used to be a ton of organic soil nutrients in bottles (like the now-discontinued GO Box) but many options have disappeared as growers switch to using amended compost for their organic nutrient needs. Why? The organic nutrients in bottles get similar results to mineral nutrients. The biggest difference in organic growing seems to come from using actual compost and/or amended soil.

• Nature’s Living Soil (super concentrated organic compost nutrient mix) – amend bottom 1/3 of your plant container with this special organic amendment, and plants will be able to slowly use the nutrients “on-demand”. Even if your plants are already growing in soil, you can sprinkle a little of this on top of your soil and water to deliver organic nutrients. Note: smells strongly of manure!
  • Get a complete tutorial on the Nature’s Living Soil grow method
• Dr. Earth Organic Nutrients – dry nutrients
  • Vegetative Stage: Homegrown Tomato, Vegetable and Herb Fertilizer
  • Flowering Stage: Flower Girl Bud and Bloom Fertilizer
• Roots Organics Terp Tea Fertilizer Set (Grow & Bloom) – This dry formula is mixed with aerated water and brewed for 24 hours to create a “tea” for your plants. Can also be used as a top dressing.

Best supplement ingredients for organic growing

• Sea kelp – a source of K (potassium), helps plants resist heat and stress
• Leonardite – full of humic acids for happy roots, resist stress
• Protein hydrolysate (contained in many supplements) – helps plants produce big roots and be more resistant to water stress
• Potassium Sulfate (also called “Sulfate of Potash”) – the sulfur and potassium promote smells and bud development in the flowering stage

My favorite organic supplement contains all of the above: Floralicious Plus

How to Adjust pH in an Organic Soil Grow (regular PH Up and PH Down can harm the natural balance of the soil)

• Raise PH – Earth Juice Natural PH Up
• Lower PH – Earth Juice Natural PH Down

Learn more about testing pH with organic soil

Organic cannabis growing is rewarding!

Chemical Nutrients (including synthetic and mineral-based nutrients)

• Possibly Increased Potency – While organic nutrients may increase the smell and taste of buds, chemical nutrients tend to increase the potency.
• Faster Growth and Bigger Yields – Synthetic nutrients provide nutrients to plants in the most easy-to-absorb forms possible. This results in somewhat faster growth and improved yields since the nutrients don’t need to be broken down in the soil by a colony of microorganisms before they become available to your plant.
• Only Choice for Hydro – These are the best cannabis nutrients for hydroponic systems because they are less likely to cause stuff to grow in the water reservoir. However, chemical nutrients can also be a great choice for soil or coco because of the increased potency and faster growth!
• Easier to Get Nutrient Burn – Although you can give cannabis plants nutrient burn with organic nutrients, it’s much easier to give them nutrient burn with chemical nutrients. This is due to the easily absorbable nature of these nutrients. Synthetic nutrients get taken up by your roots whether the plant needs them or not.

The General Hydroponics Flora trio is a synthetic nutrient that’s so effective it was used by NASA to grow plants in space!

Don’t want to use nutrients at all? Learn how to compost your own super soil (or buy super soil pre-made online)! Super soil compost contains all the nutrients your plant will need from seed to harvest so you just need to add water. As an added bonus, with composted super soil you rarely need to worry about maintaining your pH. Instead, the composting process develops a colony of microorganisms in your soil that will automatically take care of the pH for your plants to an extent (like in nature), while slowly providing nutrients on demand.

Super soil compost has been amended so no additional nutrients are needed. Just add water!

Can I create my own nutrient system?

Creating a nutrient system is more complicated than just adding “Nitrogen,” “Phosphorus” and “Potassium” plus all the various micro-nutrients in certain ratios. There several different chemical compounds that provide each of these nutrients and they’re not all equal.

Learn about creating a cannabis nutrient system from scratch

More About Cannabis Nutrients

• Best Nutrients for Soil
• Best Nutrients for Coco
• Best Nutrients for Hydro

Common New Grower Topics

• How Much Will Electricity Cost?
• Choosing the Best Grow Light
• Soil or Hydro?
• Stealth Growing: How NOT to Get Caught Growing Weed
• Where to Get Seeds
• Best Strains for Beginners
• Germinate Your Seeds

The post Best Nutrients for Growing Weed? appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

Complete Guide: Plant Training to Increase Auto-Flowering Strain Yields

For those who don’t know: An auto-flowering marijuana plant automatically starts making buds about 3-5 weeks from seed germination (timing depends on the strain). Most autoflowering plants are ready to harvest just 2-3 months from germination, much faster than traditional “photoperiod” cannabis strains.

Today’s cannabis training tutorial will teach you how to grow autoflowering plants like this.

Unlike photoperiod strains, auto-flowering strains also don’t need special light schedules to make buds. Growers simply give the plants light, water, and nutrients, then wait until the buds are ready to harvest.

Note: You probably won’t find auto-flowering seeds in your buds so you’ll need to buy them from a reputable breeder (check out the list of recommended auto-flowering breeders below).

Learn how to force your autoflowering plants to grow a sea of buds!

Avoid stunted plants! Learn how to never grow autoflowering plants that stay tiny with small yields like this.

Avoid crazy plants! Learn how to never grow out-of-control auto-flowering plants like these ones.

Today, you’ll learn how to grow perfectly sized autoflowering plants with big fat buds. That way you get huge yields every time!

A quick-yet-bountiful harvest is one of the biggest benefits of growing auto-flowering marijuana plants. However, the shortened vegetative stage brings up an important question. Generally, when growing photoperiod cannabis strains, indoor growers use plant training methods for the first 4-6 weeks of a plant’s life to make plants grow flat and maximize yields in the flowering stage.

“Plant Training” to Increase Yields (a time-tested technique)

Can auto-flowering plants be “trained” in their short vegetative stage? And if they can be trained, does it actually provide any benefits? The short answer is “yes” to both questions (with one caveat).

What is training? Growers “train” cannabis plants to grow flat and wide like a table.

This wide, flat shape naturally increases yields vs letting plants grow naturally.

A 300W LED grow light produced over 11 ounces with this method! Here’s the full LED setup.

Big or Small, This Method Works!

This tutorial works for even small autoflowering plants to increase yields!

Example: This gorgeous Forbidden Runtz auto-flowering plant was trained from a young age and produced several ounces under a tiny 100W LED grow light (a $90 Spider Farmer SF-1000 LED). Here’s the full setup I used.

Healthy Auto-Flowering Plants Usually Respond Well to Plant Training

Auto-flowering strains can be trained to produce more and bigger colas, and proper plant training can increase yields and overall improve your grow results. Follow the instructions on this page to copy the results in your autoflowering cannabis garden.

See 10 Recommended Auto-Flowering Cannabis Breeders
(plus several suggested autoflowering strains)

Auto-flowering strains from a decade ago were heavily hybridized with wild hemp and produced small and subpar-quality flowers. However, modern auto-flowering strains from trustworthy breeders (like this Auto Lemon OG plant) produce buds that are just as potent and beautiful as traditional photoperiod strains.

Now let’s learn how to maximize your yields so you harvest tons of high-quality buds every time.

Which is Best? 3 Main Schools of Thought on Auto-Flower Training

There are 3 main schools of thought about what works best when it comes to training auto-flowering cannabis plants. Each has pros and cons:

• Method 1: No Training at All – This means letting plants grow naturally, without any attempt to “train”. Since autos only stay in the vegetative stage for a few weeks, it may end up stunted if you stress your plant too much with extensive training. A stunted auto-flowering plant produces very low yields. As a result, many growers recommend no training at all when it comes to auto-flowering marijuana strains, just to be safe. Untrained auto-flowering plants can still produce a lot of bud!
• Method 2: Low Stress Training Only (aka “LST” or Bending) – The idea behind low stress training is to force the plant into the flat shape you want by bending over tall stems and tying them down. The advantage of sticking only to bending is it’s very low stress (hence the name) on the plant. There’s basically no chance of stunting a plant from gentle bending. However, with LST you don’t have the same full control over the plant’s shape as you do when you actually “top” the plant (split the main cola into two), which makes it very easy to grow a wide and flat plant.
• Method 3: “Top” the Plant in Addition to Other Training – With cannabis plants, “topping” is one of the most common ways to dramatically increase yields for almost no work. But does topping work for autos? Yes, when done right. Modern auto-flowering strains often respond well to “topping”. This is when you cut off the very top of the main stem when the plant has only a few nodes, so that it grows two main stems instead of just one. This makes it easy to spread out the plant under the light. Topping usually won’t stress your plant if it’s healthy and fast-growing, but it’s possible that topping may contribute to stress or stunting if your plant is slow growing or sickly. Keep reading to learn more!

Most cannabis growers agree you don’t want to do ultra-aggressive training on an auto-flowering plant, for example you probably wouldn’t want to make a full manifold, which takes several weeks in the vegetative stage to set up. Though there are exceptions, you usually don’t have enough time in the vegetative stage to take full advantage of that kind of training technique with auto-flowering plants. But you do have some effective options.

Your main goal with training auto-flowering strains is to avoid “stunting” plants.

Avoid This: Stunted Auto-Flowering Plants

These auto-flowering plants were stunted when they were young by heat and overwatering. Now they’ve already started flowering and are just a few weeks from harvest.

Even though they have a plentiful amount of light, at this point the plants are not going to get any bigger no matter what the grower does because the vegetative stage is over, and the flowering stage is already under way.

Here’s a closeup of the middle plant. You can see by the bud development that it’s just a month or so from harvest. Since it’s this far into the flowering stage, you know that the plant is not going to get any bigger. The buds will fatten up, but even if they tripled in size, the grower would only get a few grams of bud. The plant just isn’t big enough to support bigger yields.

This is why many growers recommend no training for auto-flowering plants. They’re trying to avoid stunting. But in the above example, the plants weren’t even topped. They were stunted from heat and overwatering, not training. So, I think the main point is to avoid stressing the plant when it’s young, not something as black and white as “no training allowed.”

Method 1: Untrained Auto-Flowering Plants

Here are examples of untrained auto-flowering plants. With good care and a strong grow light, they can produce a whole lot of bud without any training, especially if you have some extra height to spare.

Gorilla Glue Auto by Fastbud – This plant did great without training.

White Widow Auto – This plant grew too wild and tall without training.

These 5 auto-flowering plants were started at the same time. Without any training, they grew into this sea of buds at harvest! Growing many untrained plants together can be one of the easiest ways to get to a quick, hefty harvest. This style of growing is known as Sea of Green and is very well suited to auto-flowering strains. However, they likely would have produced even better yields (and fewer small larfy buds) if they were trained.

Method 2: Low Stress Training on Autos (without “Topping”)

Here’s an example of LSTing (Low Stress Training) an auto-flowering plant by bending over the main cola when it was young and still mostly in the vegetative stage.

This allows the plant to be spread out in a way that’s somewhat similar to the result of topping

This auto also wasn’t topped. I only used bending and securing to try to keep it wide with many colas. I was happy in the end with the shape, but it was a big pain trying to keep it flat. It’s just a lot easier to keep plants flat when you top them, since it splits them and you can lay each side flat.

Without topping you end up making a “spiral” with the main stem to keep it as short as the rest. Here’s the “skeleton” of that plant to give you a better idea of what the training looked like underneath

An auto-flowering Super Skunk plant just before harvest – this plant spent a little over 2.5 months under a Mars LED grow light.

A view of the same plant from the side. Only LST/bending was used to keep it short and wide, and as a result, you can see there’s still one dominant cola higher than the rest, even though the plant has been completely bent over.

​

Method 3: “Topping” the Auto-Flowering Plant

If you cut off the very top of a young, fast-growing auto-flowering plant, it may not even notice. Many growers recommend against topping an auto plant because stress can stunt your plant. While you definitely want to avoid stunting, I personally think topping autos works well as long as you make sure your plant is healthy and fast-growing first.

To be honest, other factors like overwatering or a poor environment seem to be much more likely to stunt an auto-flowering plant than topping, especially if you’re cutting off just the very tip of the plant without removing much plant matter.

Overwatering or a poor environment is far more likely to stunt an auto-flowering plant than a simple topping. For example, this auto-flowering plant was stunted due to overwatering and heat. 

I’ve had great results from topping my auto-flowering plants. I’ve also gotten great results with either no training or just low stress training! So, I definitely think you can succeed with any training style as long as you listen to your plants.

This Auto Amnesia Haze plant was topped, trained, and defoliated. It already has a sea of buds, with a month left to go until harvest!

When is the best time to top an auto-flowering cannabis plant?

Although you can top a plant any time it is still in the vegetative stage, I believe you will get the best results by removing the 4th or 5th node while it’s still tiny, as long as the plant is fast-growing.

This is about as old as an auto-flowering plant should be for topping. For auto-flowering plants older than this, you should probably avoid topping and stick to low stress training.

I think one of the most important things to avoid stunting is to remove as little as possible. The less you remove, the less the plant will notice.

I personally wouldn’t cut off more than this when topping an auto-flowering marijuana plant.

You could even pinch the stem off a little higher, above those two baby fan leaves. The arrows point to the two growth tips that would be the new “tops” if you had cut where the red line is. In this case, you would have removed even less from the plant, reducing the chance of stunting even more, and helping your plant keep as much growth as possible.

This diagram shows where to cut for topping, along with where to expect the new main stems.

Here’s an example of two topped autoflowering plants. The tall one was topped as specified above, before it started growing buds. The small one is the same strain, but was topped after it had already started growing buds. This helps show just how much you can stunt the growth of an auto-flowering plant by topping it too late.

When cannabis plants start making buds, the buds look like little white hairs (sometimes called pistils, stigmas, or styles). These hairs appear at the base of fan leaves or at the top of each stem. If you see more than 2 hairs coming from one spot, it means buds are already developing and it’s too late to top the plant.

Top autoflowering plants before you see more than 2 hairs per spot. You can see there are only 2 pistils coming from each spot here. It’s still okay to top this plant, but just barely. By tomorrow or the next day, it will likely be too late.

Can be topped: This plant can also be topped, but do it right now. It’s just about to start flowering.

Too late to top! It’s too late to top this autoflowering plant. Way too many hairs popping up everywhere! That means it’s fully in the flowering stage.

Too late to top! This plant is a week or two into bud development. Never top a plant with buds that have developed this far.

When is it a Bad Idea to Train an Auto-Flowering Plant?

Auto plants are on a very tight time schedule in the vegetative stage, and therefore plant training isn’t necessarily the best idea for plants that are already sick or stunted since they likely won’t have time to recover.

Don’t Train an Auto if…

• Plant is Sick, Stunted, or Slow-Growing
• Plant is older than 4-5 weeks old
• Plant has already started forming little budlets (more than two white hairs from a spot at the base of each leaf)
  • after this point, only use low-stress bending and securing stems down to keep the plant the shape you want

With an auto-flowering strain, you generally have about a month to create the main shape of the plant. After that, it will start flowering and although it will continue getting taller, you want to let the plant focus on fattening the buds as opposed to a whole lot of further training.

If you’re not sure whether to top your plant, it’s recommended to stick to bending as it can achieve similar results without any risk of further stunting your plant. Notice how the main stem of this plant was bent all the way over and tied down.

That being said, almost every other plant training method (topping or FIMing, low stress training, supercropping and Sea of Green) can be used on auto-flowering plants as long as you watch the plant closely for signs of stress and make sure you let the plant get big enough to produce good yields in the flowering stage!

Extra Growing Tips for Autos

Low to Medium Nutrient Needs

Whether you grow in soil, coco coir, or a full hydroponic setup, auto-flowering plants often tend to prefer relatively low levels of nutrients compared to many other cannabis strains.

When it comes to adding extra bottled nutrients, start at 1/2 strength of the recommended dose or less, and only add higher levels of nutrients if needed. In hydro use “vegetative” nutrients until you see “budlets” (little bunches of white hairs) which is often around 4-5 weeks. In good soil, you don’t need to add any nutrients during the vegetative stage. After the first signs of buds, start adding “flowering” nutrients at very low strength (1/2 strength to start).

Don’t go overboard with nutrients & supplements.

Use a Good Potting Mix (Soil or Coco)

Potted auto plants tend to do best in an airy potting mix with lots of drainage (plenty of drainage holes, and something like perlite to help add more drainage to your growing medium). This helps makes sure roots get plenty of oxygen so plants grow as fast as possible.

With any soil mix, it’s recommended to have about 20-30% extra perlite for increased drainage.

Good soil or coco is fluffy, and has airy white rocks (known as perlite).

Read a simple soil grow guide for autos.

However, I use coco coir to get faster growth than soil.

Strain & Final Size Have an Effect on Training 

The final size of your auto plants is largely dependent on the strain you get. Some cannabis autoflowering strains have been bred to grow extremely short – less than 1-2 feet. Other strains can grow taller, up to 4 feet tall, or even more.

Although most auto strains start flowering at just 3-4 weeks, some strains take up to 8 weeks (or even longer) before they automatically start making buds. Often, long-flowering auto strains are labeled as “Super Autos” or “XXL” but you should still read the breeder description to fully know what to expect as far as timelines and height.

If you have a plant that is not “auto-ing” as soon as you want, you can put it on a 12/12 light schedule and it will usually start flowering in 1-2 weeks just like a photoperiod plant.

These two auto-flowering plants are the same age and were grown in the same setup! Genetics makes a huge difference to your final results, so it’s important to pick the right auto-flowering strain!

The small plant is White Widow Auto & the huge plant is Onyx Auto (unknown breeders).

Auto-flowering pic by Vapo69

These two auto-flowering plants are also the same age and grown in the same environment. The itty bitty plant (front bottom left, it’s easy to miss it’s so small!) is Auto Chemdawg. The huge plant is Super Lemon Haze Auto.

Auto-flowering pic by henry tate

As a general rule of thumb, auto plants tend to double or triple in size from when they first start showing signs of flowering/budding (usually when plants are about 3-4 weeks old from seed).

Final Height of Auto-Flowering Plants is Often ~2-3 Times the Height When the Plant First Started Showing Pistils/Hairs

An auto-flowering plant is usually “full size” at just 6-7 weeks from seed. For example, these autos are 6 weeks old and didn’t get any taller, even though buds are still fattening and harvest is still several weeks away.

A stunted autoflower won’t produce much bud because it never gets big,

Bend too-tall branches down and away from the center of your plant

Plant training is a tactic that helps cannabis growers increase yields indoors by exposing more buds to strong, direct light from the grow light.

When growing any cannabis plants indoors, it’s recommended to at least use bending to open up the plant so it grows flat and wide

A view from the side just before harvest so you can see how those plants were trained to grow flat and wide. Training allows all the bud sites to grow directly under the light, so they get as big as possible

See the full grow journal with these autos.

10 Recommended Auto-Flowering Breeders (and some favorite strains)

Which breeders can you trust for good auto-flowering marijuana seeds? These auto breeders have dedicated themselves to developing great auto-flowering strains, and have gained popularity for their consistency and quality.

​There are many other breeders that offer auto-flowering seeds, but the breeders listed have become famous for breeding some of the best auto seeds when it comes to ease of growth, potency and yields. Let us know if you believe there’s an auto-flowering cannabis breeder we should add to this list!

10 Recommended Autoflowering Breeders

Many breeders produce great auto-flowering strains (Barney’s Farm, etc.), but the following breeders stand out for consistency and potency. Click the name of the breeder to see a list of their currently available auto-flowering strains.

• Bomb Seeds – sparkly and potent buds. Bomb Seeds breeds both autoflowering and photoperiod cannabis seeds, and all perform well. I’ve grown their THC Bomb Auto multiple times and I was impressed with the yields, bud potency, and just overall nice look of the buds. Their other auto-flowering “bomb” strains are great too, including Berry Bomb Auto (berry flavor), Cherry Bomb Auto (cherry flavor), and Big Bomb Auto (super high yielding).
• Dutch Passion – Excellent yields (some of the best yields for auto-flowering strains that I’ve grown). Smooth, classic effects on their buds. Their Cinderella Jack Auto is extra potent with dense buds.
• FastBuds Seeds – Fast and potent. Fastbuds have gone “all in” for auto-flowering strains. In fact, every auto strain I’ve grown from Fastbuds has produced above-average quality buds in smell, appearance, and potency. Highly recommended.
• G13 Labs – Consistent good results. Plants closely match the strain descriptions, so you get what you expect. I especially like their Pineapple Express Auto strain.
• Mephisto Genetics – One of the first truly great auto-flowering breeders, Mephisto has been at the top of the autoflowering game for over a decade now. They keep upping the ante and are an industry leader in autoflowering genetics for a reason! My favorite strains from them are Double Grape Auto and Creme de la Chem Auto.
• Nirvana – All their strains are easy to grow. Their Blue Dream Auto makes beautiful medium-THC buds with a medium amount of CBD, while their Raspberry Cough Auto is popular because it has a relatively low, fruity smell.
• Royal Queen Seeds – Buds always come out beautiful (they look just like the pictures) and smell great.
• Seed Supreme – Offer a ton of different auto-flowering strains, with genetics suitable for any taste.
• Seedsman – The Seedsman website offers seeds from many different breeders, but they also sell in-house “Seedsman” brand auto-flowering seeds, which grow fast with high-quality buds, and have above-average germination rates.
• Sweet Seeds – Spanish genetics with beautiful and colorful strains like Cream Caramel Auto.

Here are some pictures of autoflowering cannabis plants I’ve grown from these breeders.

Cinderella Jack Auto by Dutch Passion makes extra-potent, rock-hard buds with above-average yields. This little plant produced several ounces by itself.

Zkittlez Auto by Fastbuds – big yields and bud effects are lovely

Auto Lemon OG makes beautiful buds and plants are easy to grow.

I’ve grown multiple THC Bomb Auto plants (by Bomb Seeds) and they always respond well to training and produce great bud quality.

Buds come out super sparkly on the THC Bomb autos!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial as much as I would have when I first started growing with autoflowering strains. Send us pics of your favorite autoflowering plants for a chance to be featured in our weekly newsletter’s “trophy pics of the week” section.

The post How to “Train” Auto-Flowering Plants for Bigger Yields appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Most Common Plant Training Mistakes

1. Not Training at All
2. Breaking a Main Stem by Accident
3. Mistakenly Keeping Plants Too Small
4. Letting Plants Get Too Big
5. Topping Plant Too Early (or Incorrectly)
6. Not Securing Plants Properly
7. Excessive Training on Sick or Slow-Growing Plants

Did you know that “training” your cannabis plants to grow many main bud sites (instead of just one) is a simple and free way to get bigger yields indoors? Plant training can increase indoor yields by 40% or more (compared to letting plants grow naturally) by forcing plants to grow bigger, denser buds, without as many smaller or airy ones.

In the vegetative stage, marijuana plants are trained to grow wide and flat, like a table

In the flowering stage, this shape ensures that many bud sites develop into long, thick colas by taking advantage of the fact that cannabis plants put the most energy into buds that are both at the top of the plant and close to the grow light.

Although plant training can produce impressive results, sometimes marijuana growers aren’t given the right information, which can cause unfortunate mistakes that hurt their yields!

With that in mind, I will cover the 7 most common marijuana plant training mistakes, so you get the yields results you want every time, even if it’s your first time!

1.) Not Training at All

In our growing forum, when I asked what people’s biggest mistakes were when it came to training their cannabis plants, the most common answer was actually growers regretted not training their plants at all!

It’s true that you can get great results without any plant training, but training techniques can significantly improve your yields compared to letting the plant grow into its natural shape. Plant training can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be, but even a little bit of effort in your plant’s early life can make a big difference to your final bud weight!

The trained plant on the right had many more main colas and produced far more bud than the untrained plant on the left, even though it took up less space

2.) Breaking a Main Stem by Accident

It’s important to use bending techniques from the beginning of a plant’s life because stems start getting stiff as they get older. Starting while the plant is still young makes the whole process go much more easily!

However, even if you’re careful, it can be easy to snap a stem by accident. This most often happens when trying to forcefully bend an older stem that has become thick and unyielding.

Nothing is better than bending when stems are flexible to get your plants to grow exactly how you want, but there are a few techniques that can help you bend over stems after they’ve already hardened!

Prevent broken stems by bending at the newest growth if possible, where stems are more flexible.

Supercropping (Advanced) – If a stem feels too stiff but it must be bent, don’t force it! Use a technique called “supercropping” to soften up the inside first, so the skin doesn’t break.

1. Pinch the stem tightly between your fingers at the place you want it to bend
2. Start gently wiggling the stem back and forth while also trying to crush the new joint in between your fingers.
3. Wiggle back and forth for 10+ seconds, or until the stem has greatly loosened up at the place you want to bend.
4. Once the stem feels loose and flexible at the joint, you’re safe to bend it over and secure it in place. This can even work with thicker stems if you’re patient enough to wiggle for a while!

Learn More About Supercropping

If you do end up breaking a main stem, you can often tape up the injury like a cast and the plant will heal itself over the next week or two.

Remember: If you do break off a main stem early in a plant’s life, it’s no big deal because there are usually dozens more growth tips to take its place! And even if you break off a main stem/cola during the flowering stage and can’t tape it up in time, it can help to remember that most growers lose a cola at some point!

3.) Mistakenly Keeping Plants Too Small

A very small plant just can’t make as much bud as a bigger plant, so keeping plants smaller than needed can reduce your yields. You will get the best yields by growing your plants so that they fill up your grow space.

Since this plant was kept so small before it started flowering, it just doesn’t have the size or infrastructure to support a lot of buds. There’s nothing a grower can do at this point to get a plant like this to yield a lot of bud. It’s important to avoid mistakenly keeping plants too small before they start making buds!

It’s important to wait until a plant is at least 3-4 weeks old before initiating the flowering stage (putting cannabis plants on a 12/12 light schedule), even if you’re trying to get to harvest as fast as possible.

This is because a plant won’t start flowering before about week 3-4 anyway, so giving plants a 12/12 light schedule before that time just reduces the total amount of light they get each day, and they won’t get as big as plants under 18/6 or a 24/0 schedule from seed.

3-4 Week Old Plant – Never switch to 12/12 earlier than this or plants will stay tiny, and waiting a few more weeks is probably better!

This plant was switched to flowering when it was 4 weeks old, and yielded about an ounce in one big cola.

Some growers recommend you wait until 6 weeks to start flowering. One reason is that cannabis plants tend to mature the fastest if they have already started showing “pre-flowers” (tiny versions of adult flowers) before initiating the flowering stage.

But the main reason is that letting the plants go just a little bit longer – to about week 6 – will give you plants that are significantly bigger and which can support bigger buds.

6-Week Old Plant That’s Been Trained to Grow Flat

After being switched to 12/12 immediately after the above picture, the plant turned into this, yielding about 6 ounces on the single plant. Two extra weeks in the vegetative stage can make a huge difference in plant size!

Note: These rules don’t apply to auto-flowering plants, which will automatically start flowering on their own without any input from you. If you want a very small plant that yields a lot, consider auto-flowering strains: they’re ready to harvest about 3 months from germination and stay small on their own! Overall, it’s much better than doing 12/12 from seed.

4.) Letting Plants Get Too Big

As we just covered, if you have the space/height for it, you’ll get better yields for your electricity by giving the plant time to get to a decent size before switching to the flowering stage.

However, if you let a plant get too big during the vegetative stage, it may completely overgrow your space!

Look at how this plant has already grown into the grow lights in the vegetative stage! This is a problem because the lights can’t be lifted up any higher in this particular grow space, and the plant is going to double in height after the switch to 12/12! This kind of crazy overgrowth can happen before you know it if you have a fast-growing plant, so stay aware of how big your plant is getting!

If plants are allowed to get too big during the vegetative stage, you’ll not only end up wasting time and electricity, you’ll also find yourself with an overcrowded grow space. Plants being too close to each other and the grow lights can cause light burn, white powdery mildew, bud rot, and other unwanted problems.

Flowering Stretch: It’s important to remember that plants often double in height (known as the “flowering stretch”) after the switch to the flowering stage, so it’s important to change to 12/12 around the time the plants have reached half the final desired height.

Pre-Stretch – Right before the switch to 12/12

Post-Stretch – 4 weeks after the switch to 12/12. Notice how much taller they got!

Learn more about the flowering stretch!

If you have a plant that’s been growing incredibly tall and lanky, with a lot of upward growth without as much side branching, consider that a plant like that may stretch up to three times its height after the switch to 12/12. A plant that tends to grow short and bushy its whole life may not stretch much at all.

Different strains will stretch a different amount after the switch to 12/12. The main clue is what the breeder says about the strain, as well as how the plant tended to grow in the vegetative stage (lanky vegetative plants often become lanky adults).

5.) Topping Plant Early or Incorrectly

Removing the top of the main stem (“topping” the plant) before it has grown at least 3-4 nodes often wastes more time than it saves.

In fact, removing any part of the plant when it’s very young can stunt the plant, meaning it may grow slowly or stop growing altogether for days or even weeks.

However, if you wait until a plant is healthy and growing fast with a good root system, it won’t even slow down after being topped! Waiting until the plant is the right size often improves your overall results from topping.

These young cannabis plants are ready to be topped

If you cut off just the very tip of your plant, there’s very little chance of stunting, even if it only has 3 or 4 nodes in total.

Many growers top down to the 3rd node/pair of leaves (like in the following picture) in order to form a short manifold. If you plan on any kind of extensive training like building a manifold, wait until the young plant has grown at least 6 nodes before starting; this ensures it has established a good root system. The more of the plant you remove at a time, the more it stresses the plant, so you want to make sure your plant is mature/strong enough to handle it!

Be careful not to damage the growth tips during topping. These tiny stems will become your new main colas, and the base of every growth tip is where buds form.

Always leave a little extra stem when topping a marijuana plant – this helps prevent the main stalk from splitting!

6.) Not Securing Your Plant Properly!

Don’t use string or anything “sharp” to secure plants, as it can start cutting into their skin over time! Also, it’s important to make sure that you can easily access all your plants after training.

Never use string to hold down your plants!

Notice how this plant can’t be moved from its location because it’s attached to a nearby wall? Don’t do this! Always attach your plant directly to the pot so you can pick it up and move it. Also, avoid using something sharp like string or chicken wire to hold down the plants, because it will slowly cut into the plant’s “skin” over time and cause damage.

Plant twist ties are perfect for securing plants! They bend into the shape you want, and are soft enough they won’t hurt plants.

Or get creative! Any type of soft flexible wire works well

Make sure to attach any twisty ties directly to the plant container; this lets you pick up and move the plant freely!

As the plant grows, whenever some of the colas are getting taller than the others…

Bend the tallest ones over until they’re all the same height as each other. Following just that one principle will produce the shape you’re looking for!

7.) Excessive Training on Sick or Slow-Growing Plants

When a cannabis plant is slow-growing or suffering from deficiencies, it is much more sensitive to stress from training. Things like topping, supercropping and extreme defoliation can all aggravate a sick plant and make it take longer to recover.

If you have a sick or slow-growing plant it’s good to give them a few days of TLC before you commence training 🙂

Always let sick plants recover before extensive training. This plant suffered from a grower accidentally giving 3x the correct amount of nutrients. It’s important to wait until it’s healthy and growing new leaves every day before doing anything else to this poor plant!

What can you do to help a cannabis plant relax for a few days?

Help plants recover quickly by moving the grow light a few inches away, and leaving the plant alone on an 18/6 light schedule (if it’s in the vegetative stage, of course, if you have a plant on a 12/12 light schedule you don’t want to change it!).

Providing relatively low levels of light in a comfortable, temperate environment without any disturbance can help a stressed plant regain its strength and start growing fast again in just a day or two. Once your plant is healthy and growing again, put the lights back on at full strength!

How far away should I keep my grow lights?

After extensive wilting from a heat spell, the grower of the plant below thought his baby was a goner. He tossed the dying plant in a bucket at the edge of his grow room, with the plan of throwing it in the garbage later that day. He somehow forgot, and a few days later he came back to find out that the comfortable temperature outside the grow tent and filtered light levels from a nearby window had been just the thing to bring the plant back to life! Even with just an inch of water at the bottom of the bucket, the plant was thriving!

Check out that plant at harvest!

At a recent growing convention in San Diego I heard from another grower who’d noticed that lowering the light levels just a tiny bit can help a sick plant recover more quickly. The worst thing you can do for a sick plant is turn up the light, because it makes the plant work harder to keep up with all that photosynthesis!

I thought a cannabis plant could come back from anything?

When people say, “It grows like a weed” and explain how cannabis plants can recover from anything, they’re talking about a healthy, fast-growing plant. You really can do almost anything to a vibrant cannabis plant in the vegetative stage and it’ll bounce right back!

For growers who always have healthy plants, it can seem like plants simply can’t get stunted. But if you take the same approach with a sick, sparse or slow-growing plant, it can dramatically slow down the plant’s growth for days or even weeks in rare cases!

Now is not the time to train this plant (or try anything new really). Wait until it has recovered first, then start training!

Whenever you’re thinking about training or removing parts of the plant, always consider the plant’s overall health first. You’ll know when you would be better served by waiting a few days to start training.

Now that you know how to prevent the 7 most common plant training problems that hurt yields…

Time to start training your plants!

Jump to….

How Many Plants Should I Grow?

7 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I First Started Growing Weed

Why Are Cannabis Leaves Turning Yellow?

7 Tips to Improving Bud Quality

The post 7 Unfortunate Plant Training Mistakes appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

Is your cannabis seedling growing upside down? Has the tap root come above the soil?

If your root is growing straight up like in the picture below, it’s not good. This is most common in seedling plugs. The tender white root tip has a good chance of drying out or being exposed to too much light. You may want to do some “plant surgery” to turn this little seedling around to the right direction 🙂

Step 1 is to get a new Rapid Rooter. Since your seed already has a relatively long root, cut the plug open lengthwise so you can gently place the seedling inside in the right position without having to “push” down on the seed.

Now gently extract the seed from its original home with a pair of tweezers making sure to touch only the shell and not the root (the root is the most sensitive part)! Now lay the seedling in the middle of your newly split open Rapid Rooter and gently close the plug around it again.

Most seedling plugs will go back into place easily, and you’ll barely be able to tell it’s been opened 🙂

Since your seedling has already sprouted and has been in placed into the right growing position, it’ll probably pop its head out within just 12-24 hours! Sometimes you see just the leaves, but occasionally you actually see the seedling push the shell above ground.

When this happens the shell usually falls off on its own as the seedling grows!

When Should I NOT Do Surgery?

Sometimes you can see the young taproot of a cannabis seedling but the situation isn’t as dire. If the root is already pointed in the right direction, it’s probably going to be just fine! But if you’re worried, you can cover up the root until the leaves actually make it to the surface.

For example you could tear a tiny piece off the edge of this Rapid Rooter and gently lay it on top. Or if you were in soil you could sprinkle a tiny bit of soil over the seedling. The seedling will push it off as it grows upward.

This case isn’t so bad because the root is already facing down, in the correct direction. Note: This seedling was just watered, but typically the Rapid Rooter should never look this wet. It should be moist but not shiny.

If you leave it alone, the seed will start to rise up, and open to reveal the seedling’s cotyledons (first, round leaves)

The cotyledons unfurl and then the regular cannabis leaves between to grow. Here’s another view of that same seedling from above only a few hours later. Even though it may have looked a bit weird at first, this seedling is completely normal and will grow just fine from now on!

Most of the Time Seedlings Take Care of Themselves!

When you see your seedling looks like this, where the part of the root exposed to the surface already looks green like a stem, you don’t need to do anything.

After cannabis germination, the root tip goes down and stays white. The other side that’s contained in the shell tries to work its way up, and that part of the stem turns green. Sometimes it looks like the root is going upside down because it appears that it’s not strong enough to be able to push the seed up.

As long as the tip of the root stays wet the seedling will be fine! The “root” is the same as what is going to become the stem. If it appears green it means that part of the root is already in “stem” mode and isn’t sensitive to the light.

If you just wait a little everything will have righted itself 🙂 Here’s that seedling 12 hours later…

12 hours after that, the leaves have completely emerged!

If you hadn’t been watching you wouldn’t even have known anything happened!

How to Germinate Cannabis Seeds

Common New Grower Topics

How Much Will Electricity Cost?

What Type of Nutrients Should I Use?

Choosing the Best Grow Light

Stealth Growing: How NOT to Get Caught Growing Weed

Where to Get Seeds

The post Seedling is growing upside down, taproot above the soil! appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

What makes hydroponic nutrients “good” or “bad?”

My favorite hydroponic nutrients for cannabis is the General Hydroponics Flora trio (just use at half strength what’s on the bottle) But… why are some hydro nutrients better than others for growing cannabis? What kind of hydroponic nutrients need to be avoided when growing marijuana? Do you need expensive nutrients to get good results, or will cheap nutrients get the job done?

With all the different bottles of marijuana nutrients out there, how do you know which one is best for your hydroponic setup?

When it comes to choosing hydroponic nutrients for growing weed, there are a few considerations that are really important!

Best Hydroponic Nutrients

• Made specifically for hydroponics
• No organic matter (nutrients are provided via minerals)
• Mineral nutrients are “chelated” (easier for plant to absorb at a greater range of pH levels)
• Contains rich sources of micro-nutrients (to make up for what might have been found in the soil)
• Optimum NPK ratios (more info below)

Worst Hydroponic Nutrients

• Made specifically for soil
• Contains a lot of organic matter (guano, worm castings, fish emulsion, blood meal, etc) – this stuff can completely mess up your reservoir and cause unexpected and unwanted bacteria/root problems. If it seems cloudy with lots of material floating in the water, don’t use it for hydro!

You can learn a lot about nutrients by looking at the label!

Optimum NPK Ratios for Hydroponic Cannabis Nutrients

N-P-K stands for Nitrogen-Phosphorus-Potassium, which are the three most important plant nutrients. These are what the 3 numbers listed on the front of all nutrient bottles stand for (Potassium is represented by “K” because chemists use the symbol K in the periodic table for potassium).

In order to get the best results growing cannabis in hydroponics, it’s important to give the right ratio of these crucial nutrients so the plant gets what it needs at the right time. For example, if you give too much Nitrogen in the flowering/budding phase, it actually surpresses bud production and reduces your yields even if the plant is completely healthy! You don’t want that!

So what are the optimum NPK values for growing cannabis in hydro?
(N-P-K are the 3 numbers on the front of nutrient bottles)

Additionally, hydroponic nutrients should always include….

• Magnesium
• Calcium
• Iron
• Sulfur

Nice but not necessary micro-nutrients (contained in most water sources, but if using RO or very soft water you want these in your nutrients to prevent possible deficiencies)

• Boron
• Cobalt
• Copper
• Manganese
• Molybdenum
• Zinc

The main difference between NPK ratios for hydro and soil are….

• Hydro nutrients usually contain more micro-nutrients (in trace amounts), to make up for what the plant would have been able to find in the soil
• Hydro nutrients tend to contain higher levels of Nitrogen, which is abundant in soil but not in most water sources.
• Hydro nutrients tend to have lower levels of Phosphorus, because Phosphorus is more “available” to the plant in a hydroponic setting. In soil, there are microorganisms (as well as clay “colloidal” particles) which can ‘steal’ some of it, and soil nutrients compensate by adding more Phosphorus.
• Hydro nutrients rarely use organic sources of nutrients. Soil nutrients often contain organic material, which can can make it easier for bad stuff to grow in a hydroponic reservoir. Organic sources of minerals also usually need to be broken down by microorganisms before the plant can absorb them, which doesn’t happen as well in a soilless environment.
• Hydro nutrients are often made up of chelated minerals which have been specially treated so they are easier for the plant to absorb.

What are Chelated Nutrients? Manufacturers actually “wrap” the nutrients inside an organic molecule that is less affected by pH, making it easier for the plant to absorb even if the pH is too high or too low.

When set up right with good nutrients, DWC / Hydroponics can produce some incredible yields!

Optimum pH of 5.5-6.5 <—- Sooooo important in hydro

No matter which nutrient brand you’re using, even with chelated nutrients, cannabis roots are better able to absorb some chemical forms of nutrients than others. This is where pH comes into play. When the pH at the roots is too high or too low, it actually changes the chemical form of the individual nutrient compounds, making it more difficult for your plant to absorb the nutrients it needs.

With hydroponic cannabis nutrients, they’re designed to be most available to your plant when the pH is between 5.5-6.5. If you let the pH get higher or lower than this, you will start getting nutrient deficiencies even if literally everything else is dialed in!

Learn how to adjust your pH to prevent nutrient deficiencies
(It’s easy! It’s kind of like a supplement you add to your reservoir to get better growth)

Stay skeptical of companies that say their nutrients will “automatically” adjust the pH of your water. Although some nutrient systems may be better than others at stabilizing pH, you still need to check the pH regularly if you want to get the best results in hydro. Seriously, this is really important!

Depending on your starting water, “PH Perfect” nutrient systems sometimes aren’t able to correct the pH to the right levels, at least not consistently throughout the grow.

This could happen for various reasons. For example your source water likely contains minerals and other “stuff” that will change the pH of your water. If you start with highly purified water instead of tap water, it can actually make pH swings worse because there is no “buffer” in pure water to stabilize pH.

Plus, the amount of nutrients you use changes depending on your plant and its stage of life, and changing the nutrient levels will almost always change the pH, too!

If you check the pH and it’s in the right range, that’s perfect and there’s nothing else you need to do. But don’t skip checking the pH just because the bottle says you don’t have to! Or at the very least, make sure pH is the first thing you check if you start seeing nutrient problems!

Recommended DWC Nutrients & Supplements

These hydroponic nutrients systems are not just great as far as cannabis yields and quality, they won’t break the bank either! There are lots of great nutrient systems out there, but the truth is that you don’t need incredibly expensive nutrients to get incredible marijuana!

The following nutrient systems have proven to thousands of growers, big and small, that they have everything needed to produce star-quality cannabis!

General Hydroponics Flora Trio Lineup 

• Flora Trio
• CaliMagic
• Hydroguard

Note: These are the nutrients I use with my cannabis plants grown in hydro. Highly recommended for excellent bud quality and growth.

General Hydroponics Flora Series Nutrient Trio <– Recommended for Beginners.

This is the cannabis nutrient system I have been using to grow hydroponically for more than half a decade. General Hydroponics is a trusted nutrient company and their Flora Trio works very well for beginners and advanced cannabis growers.

One cool thing about the General Hydroponic Flora trio is it contains tons of micro-nutrients in trace amounts that often aren’t even found in other hydroponic nutrients. That makes this a great choice as a complete nutrient system for growers using RO (reverse osmosis) or very soft water that doesn’t naturally contain many common minerals. The GH Flora trio will work for just about any setup with just about any water.

Feel free to check out a grow journal where we pulled in over 20 ounces from a single 600W tent using just the Trio plus Hydroguard for the roots (pic below). We didn’t use anything else for the whole grow and were very happy with our results.

Here’s my custom DWC cannabis schedule for the GH Flora trio [PDF].

These plants grown using just the GH Trio + Hydroguard (formally known as Aquashield)
Feel free to check out the complete grow journal (over 1 lb harvest!)

General Hydroponics Flora Duo Lineup

General Hydroponics FloraDuo (Bottle A & Bottle B) <– From a grower: “This is a great choice by GH if 3 bottles from the Flora Trio seems like too much to deal with. You have less complete control, but it can be a better way to get a “sense” of what the plants need at each stage, since you’re only using two bottles.” Another grower said: “Flora Duo are foundation tools in my eyes. If you’re new and you really want success early on, a simple line like the Flora Duo is going to be good. Less bottles to play with, super simple feeding schedule, and you learn. People pick up on the fact that bottle A is high nitrogen, you use a lot of it the first half then it switches to bottle B that has more Phosphorus and Potassium. So you gain some understanding as to WHY you need both, and what different things do for the plant.” Here’s the FloraDuo Nutrient Schedule from General Hydroponics [PDF]

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Hydroguard (formally known as Aquashield) – prevents and treats root rot.

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House & Garden DWC Kit Lineup

Warning: H&G Products have been difficult to find online lately

The House & Garden line-up is expensive yet remarkably effective. Aqua Flakes A + B, Roots Excelurator, Algen Extract <– Get a custom nutrient schedule directly from the people at House & Garden via their free online nutrient calculator.

From a grower: “H&G was started by a top researcher from Canna. They are right outside of Amsterdam and because cannabis is legal there, so both Canna and H&G are able to do R&D using cannabis. I don’t know about Canna, but I know that House and Garden makes all their own nutrients in house and they work great.”​

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Hydroguard (formally known as Aquashield) – prevents and treats root rot. No need for extra Cal-Mag with the Aqua Flakes line as it already comes with plenty!

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